

F, 







Class _L^.41_ 
Book Q 

CDEaUGOT DEPOSIT. 



TRAINING 



BY 



J. F. Bruce 



" HUNTSVILLE, MISSOURI 

1920 






FOREWORD: 

Pray get well-fixed in your mind the distinction between 
this system, which gives to the citizen his training throughout 
the years of youth, when it is most easily assimilated, and 
will also most greatly benefit the recipient in the matter of 
securing an "education," and at the same time leaves the pupil 
always a civilian first, and only called into service upon neces- 
sity; and that system which proposes to neglect training and 
greatly-needed discipline throughout the youth-time of the 
citizen, and then grab him up at an age when he can least 
spare the time, take him from home and home-influences when 
they, too, should remain a most potent influence in the forma- 
tion of his character, and put him for an extended period, a 
unit in a vast arniy of soldiers, where training in citizenship 
and in the interests of civilian life are in abeyance, and where 
the soldier is necessarily first and the civilian not at all. The 
result, if such a plan for military strength as this latter one 
is adopted, must be a large military caste, and ultimate mon- 
archy with all attendant evils. 



©CU601o74 



Copyright 1920 by Joseph Frazier. 

NOV i 8 1920 



CHAPTER I. 

NEED OF TRAINING. 

1. HOW PROVEN. 

Sam Jordan says that when he came into this world he 
knew nothing except how to get his breath, how to cry, and 
how to get his dinner into his mouth and swallow it. So with 
all of us. Everything else that we know and know how to do 
has had to be learned. 

We are creatures of habit, and we learn to do skillfully 
what we do often. But whatever we have not done before, 
whatever we have had no training in d'oing, we find it difficult 
to do at all. Hand a book upside-down to even a good reader, 
and ask him to read it aloud that way. If he has had no 
previous experience at it, he will do very poorly. He is not 
"used to" reading that way. But let him set type for a little 
while and he will soon become so trained as to be able to read 
not only upside-down, but with letters inversed. 

There is nothing that human beings have to do that they 
cannot do better for having received training for it. More, 
the]-e is nothing that they can do efficiently without previous 
training for it. 

Also they like to do that which they have been used to 
doing, and for the most part, have strong aversion to making 
any sort of change. 

It seems clear therefore that training — learning and prac- 
ticing how to do those things that make life worth while — is 
the most important factor in human existence. 

Many years ago an eminent medical man, Dr. Brown, 
speaking in one of the Chicago churches during a time of 
S^reat confusion and strife, said in effect, "If this generation 
were wise, it would spend more on education and training than 
all the precedin,g generations have given to these things." 
This wise man's voice was scarcely heeded, and we have the 
vast unrest and confusion and strife and vice and ignorance 
still with us. This because the men and women of this gen- 
eration, who should have received the education and training 
Dr. Brown wanted them to receive at that time did not get 
it, or only a very small fraction of it; and so today they do 
not know any better. 

Skill in everything that is given us to do comes only from 
training. It is eminently desirable that everything there is 
to do be done as efficiently as possible. Therefore it is cer- 
tainly desirable that all of us should be as thoroughly trained 



as possible in what we have to do. There should be no such 
thing as unskilled workers among grown-up people. The hod- 
carrier or ditch-digger will do his work better for having been 
properly trained for it, as will also a cook or a musician, and 
perhaps the amounts of training necessary to the best results 
in each case are not so far apart as would seem at first glance. 

2. RESULTS BEST WHEN GIVEN TO YOUNG. 

The little baby learas a great deal during the first fe\/ 
months of its existence. It receives a lot of training during 
that time. It seems to learn something new during almost 
every waking moment. Its plastic mind receives impressions 
easily, and they stay with it — these early impressions — 
throughout life. Learning to speak the difficult and complex 
English Language is only one of the many things the child 
receives and assimilates training in during its first few years. 
Later on in life the reception and assimilation of new ideas 
and training becomes more difficult. 

It seems to be a definitely settled psychological fact that, 
unless the mind has been trained to reason in early life, the 
reasonin,g powers in maturity and age are exceedingly limited 
in scope and incapable of much expansion. Neither is physi- 
cal skill and' dexterity easily acquired after maturity; and in 
age it can be acquired only with the greatest pains and dif- 
ficulty. The same rule seems also to apply to moral or ethical 
training. 

In view of these facts it becomes very clear that the 
foundation trainings for life should be given in youth, when 
they are easily received and assimilated, and when their re- 
sults will be lasting. Also because the results of the training 
received at this period of life are so lasting, the greatest care- 
should be exercised to see that the wrong sort of training is 
not given in any case. 

3. WHO SHOULD ADMINISTER TRAINING. 

In the early stages of the child's life the parents are the 
natural teachers, educators and trainers ; and the efficiency with 
which this important early training is given will depend direct- 
ly upon' the capability of the parents. 

But pretty soon other trainers and teachers begin to work 
upon the young one. Come play-mc'ites and associac.'S, hired 
teachers and preachers, newspapers and books and other things. 
In fact almost everything that youth com«s in contact with 
teaches it something good or, bad or a .mixture- of the two. 

*• Clearly it- is ■ of great importance to the individual that all 
the education, training and preparation for life and life's ;. work 
•shall be the most efficient and the best, obtainable.-:;. ■ 

Also it is equally clear that this is just as important to- 



the community and to the state. Probably we are all affect- 
ed more than we realize by the conditions of training and con- 
sequent standards of living of those around us. 

A few exceptionally strong characters may grow up into 
good men and women in the slums or amid the dens of vice; 
but the percentage is not great. Since this matter of the 
training of youth is of such great importance, both to the in- 
dividual and to the country, the utmost care should be exercised 
to see that the very best possible training is given, and given, 
too, by the most efficient teacher or trainer available. If the 
parent is incapable of furnishing the right kind of training be- 
yond a certain point, then, for the sake of the state and the 
individual both, the training should be taken up by others at 
that point and carried on. It is not fair to the child or the 
country in which he lives for his training to be neglected or 
wrongly given merely because his parents are incapable or un- 
willing to do what is ordinarily their part of the training. 
Parental authority is a great and good and natural thing; but 
it must not extend to the point where its exercise or its lack 
of exercise or harmful exercise will seriously injure the in- 
dividual or the state. 

In other words if a parent cannot or will not give to his 
offsprin,g the proper education and training beyond a certain 
point, then it becomes the duty of the state to take the mat- 
ter up at that point and see that it is done. 

Possibly when that vastly neglected subject. Training for 
Parenthood, has been efficiently and universally taught for a 
while, we shall arrive at a condition where nearly all parents 
are capable of giving, each to his own children, the full quota 
of parental training that ought to be the province of each- 
But it must be admitted that it is far from so now. 

Have not we of the Great Republic reached a point where 
we can see how to take hold of this thing and remedy it — 
establish and maintain a system of training by which practi- 
cally every youth shall be given the best possible training t© 
fit him for that which he is most capable of doing? We must 
go far along this line, or the republic will not — cannot — endure. 
No republic can succeed with a large part of its population 
ignorant, untrained and illiterate. 

We have lately demonstrated that we have reached a stage 
of civilization where great refoiTns and great advancements do 
not necessarily have to be made through the agencies of war 
and physical force ; but that such can be and have been ac- 
complished by the persistent exercise of mentality, reason aiid 
common-sense. Smaller examples of this have been quite num- 
erous of late. Three great ones now stand out preeminent. 
The attempt at a league of nations may or may not succeed 
this time, but, at least, an earnest effort has been made. 
Women, at last, r.re comin,g into tleir rights as the political 



6 

and economic equals of men. And the abolition of the use of 
alcohol as a beverage among- us has succeeded. 

I suspect that we are just entering upon a series of men- 
tal and moral victories that are going to eclipse any and all of 
the victories that have been attained by the force of arms in 
all the ages past, great as these have sometimes been. Hu- 
manity needs more of these mental and moral victories ; and 
they will come just as rapidly and just as bloodlessly as we 
train ourselves and our posterity for them. This training is 
a good thing. Push it along. 



CHAPTER II. 

KINDS OF TRAINING NEEDED. 

The kinds of training our young people need are too num- 
erous to mention. Only a few of the most important can be 
outlined here. The point is that provision should be made 
for giving to every child all the training necessary to make of 
him or her the best man or woman — the best citizen — that he 
or she is capable of becoming. Whatever will do that is the 
right kind of training. Whatever falls below that, by just 
that far, falls below the right kind of training. How far we 
no\y fall below is appalling. 

It is no answer to this to say that our system of training 
our youth is the best in existence in the world today. That is 
probably true in most respects. I hope so, anyway. We all 
like to believe that. But the fact remains that our system 
falls so far below what it ought to be that the number left 
untrained and wrongly trained is truly appalling. The stan- 
dard must be raised much higher, both as to numbers receiv- 
ing training and the kind of training given, or our republic 
cannot endure. 

1. PHYSICAL TRAINING. 

What should be one of the biggest lessons that the Great 
War gave to us is the pointing out of the low physical condi- 
tion of our people. Not low in comparison with those of other 
countries — that is not the comparison that counts — but low in 
comparison with what it ought to be. 

Remember, the men examined were those at the age of 
the greatest health and vigor. And yet the draft Doards 
found that from about one-sixth to one-third of them had to 
be rejected, physically. An average of about one-fourth of 
the men in our country physically incompetent! And no doubt 
an examination of our women would reveal a condition fully 
as bad or even worse. Is not this an awful condition of af- 
fairs? It is; and it would strike us so if we hadn't become so 
accustomed to it. 

But pretty nearly every, babe born into the world is cap- 
able of being reared into a physically healthful, strong and nor- 
mal human being. Most of them are bom with the founda- 
tion for this. The means of so rearing them are in the hands 
of the parents, the teachers and the babe's fellow-citizens. 
There ie nothing secret nor occult nor impossible about it; and 



8 

if that babe does not receive the physical care and. training 
proper for the development of its future physical well-being, 
we; the citizens of this republic — you and I, and all the rest 
—-am responsible. The means have been given us in abun- 
dance. We humans have been supplied with a reasoning pow- 
er almost God-like. Let us use it a little. 

Of course, as in all other Kinds of training, the child's 
physical training is at first supplied, or at least supervised, 
by the parents. But how inefficient and faulty this often is! 
For the parents themselves usually do not know much about 
it. They were never taught. One or two generations of prop- 
er training in this respect will be needed to make them 
really competent for their part of the work. 

And then, when the cliild reaches school-age, his physical 
training should be under teachers as competent in that respect 
as they should be in mental and moral capabilities. And this 
is, if possible, more important for girls than for boys; for they 
are the mothers of the race. Every child should receive this 
training, and in the proper way and amount necessary to his 
physical well-being. And, of course, it should be administered 
pleasantly, not burdensomely, as should ad training in so far 
as possible. But even the child's play should have competent 
and efficient supervision. 

2. MENTAL TRAINING. 

AgaiTi, the child's earliest mental training is given by the 
parents. Aid how maay are competent to give this efficienjy? 
All too few. Why, if there were no other reason for giving 
each and every child what is usually termed a "good educa- 
tion/' it should be done because of the possibility of his or 
her some day becoming a parent and having children that 
would need efficient teaching. How shall one teach without 
having been taught? 

The gift of the mind is one of the two great things with 
which the Almighty has endowed us which differentiates us 
fiom the lower orders of animals. And nearly every child is 
born with a splendid mind, capable of almost infinite cultiva- 
tion and expansion. Also the pleasure of cultivating the 
mind, thinking about things, reasoning things out, is one of 
the greatest and holiest pleasures that is given to the human 
to enjoy. The child in its infancy does not know these things, 
and is prone, from laziness and other causes, to form contrary 
habits. But it is so, nevertheless. Therefore the child's mind 
should be trained to think logically and to reason correctly and 
to keep at it habitually. And this training should be given to 
aU. No one. except complete idiots, should be omitted. This 
for the benefi': of the '"rdividual. But whenever any consider- 
able number of the cMIdren of the country or the state or the 
community fail to ' receive such mental training, it is harmful 



to £.11 the rest. This does not have to go very far nor to coii- 
tinue veiy long before it becomes impossible to maintain in 
that community or state or country a generally decent stan- 
dard of living or anything like an equitable or just political 
or economic system, A republic cannot be maintained by an 
illiterate or a mentally low-developed populace. The census 
of 1910 showed that we had over five and a half millions of 
illiterates above the age of ten years. 

Again the Great War has read us our lesson. It is offi- 
cially reported' that the number of illiterates was surprisingly 
great, and that the number who were nearly or quite ihiterate 
was about one-fourth of the total number in service. Just 
think of it! In this United States of America! No nation, 
and especially no republic can permit such a state of affairs 
as this to continue and not suffer for it. The reaction is bound 
to come. It is here now, even at our very doors; and it will 
overwhelm us with anarchy and bolshevism and' I.W.W.-ism 
and other unbearable forms of tyranny unless we find thie 
remedy. And there is only one remedy: Educate and train 
the children — the rising generation — all of them. yes, much 
good can be accomplished in the further education and train- 
ing of grown people, too; for no man's education or training 
is complete so long as he is alive. But the amount that can 
be accomplished among the grown-ups is almost insignificant 
compared with what can and should be done in educating and 
training the children of the present generation. 

And' yet under this system that I am attempting to set 
forth, the first generation will not, cannot, receive anything 
like such efficient training as will those increasingly to follow. 
The teachers and trainers are themselves, in great part, woful- 
ly young, inexperienced, incompetent, inefficient and untrained. 
We do not pay our teachers sufficient to enable them to fit 
themselves properly for their duties nor to make it possible 
for those who are competent to keep themselves so. And 
certainly not enough to attract the competent and efficient into 
the great profession of teaching. The teacher, the trainer of 
our youth, ought to be the best paid, the most competent and 
efficient, the most highly respected person in any of the pro- 
fessions; for he has the most important and the most responsi- 
ble position of them all. But he is none of these things, and 
he will not be again until we wake up and begin to do our duty 
by him. We have been growing slacker and slacker about this 
for years. The nobility of his calling alone is holding him up 
today; we are not doing it. And if we do not do it, we are 
going to suffer deeply for it right soon. The suffering has be- 
gun already. It will be many a long day before this state or 
any of our states fully recover from the fact that, especially 
durin,g this past year, we have been having the training of our 
youth, in great part, left in the hands of very young, incom- 
petent, and themselves untrained teachers. And' the harm 



10 

done will be increased during every year that this 
condition continues. It must not continue. The Great Re- 
public cannot long sumve if it does continue. 

For each individual's sake; for the Great Republic's sake; 
and for God's sake, let us be up and set about establishing a 
g-ood, sound and efficient system of mental training for our 
children ! 

God helping me, I shall attempt to tell you a little bit of 
the how to go about it. 

S. MORAL TRAINING. 

Great is the need of a better system of physical training 
for our children. Greater the need of a more efficient system 
of mental training. But the greatest need of all is for a really 
good system of moral training. The administration of this 
must also be begun in each case by the child's parents. But 
what sort of moral teachers are the wanted and distorted pro- 
fiteer, the cheat, the lair, the scandal-monger, the near-crimi- 
nal, the criminal (caught and uncaught) the divorced, and the 
otherwise sexually impure? Many, far too many of the par- 
ents belong to some one or more of these or similar low-grade 
moral classes. And such do not make very good teachers of 
morality for the coming generations. In fact, the principal 
reason why these parents themselves are so low in the scale 
of morality is because the early teaching that was given to 
them was wofully deficient and lop-sided. The remedy? 
Make every effort to give to the children of this generation 
efficient training and instruction in morality, so that when 
they, in turn, become parents, they will know how properly 
to instruct their children. 

Next in time and importance after the teaching by the 
parents comes the child's teaching in school. The amount of 
instruction in morality that seems to be given here is pitifully 
small. It is fully as important as mental instruction — perhaps 
moi'e so — but the amount of time and effort directly devoted 
to it seems to be almost zero. Now this is not an argument 
for "religious" training in schools. But the contrary. 

One of the first things that true lovers of liberty discover- 
ed was that the state, the government, has no legitimate con- 
cern with or control over the religion or religious beliefs of 
any human being. Indeed, so recently has this knowledge 
come to man that not nearly all men nor religions nor states 
act upon it yet. 

With the morality and moral conceptions and practices of 
the citizen it is vastly different. The Government is most in- 
timately, vitally and intensely concerned with these in the case 
of every citizen. 

A man's religion is his o\^-n private affair; his morality 



11 

(or immorality) is intensely the business of the public as well 
as of himself. 

For this reason, religion should be believed and practiced 
according to the will and conscience of each individual, without 
let or hindrance or any kind of interference from the state, 
except in those rare cases where the religious beliefs claimed 
and acted upon are so outlandish as clearly to violate the 
proper conceptions of morality. 

And for this reason the teaching of any particular system 
or denomination of religion or religious belief has no place in 
the public school system of any free country. This is not say- 
ing that religious teaching and instruction should not take 
place anywhere; for it should. Indeed it is a good state of 
affairs in that respect when all, especially all the young, re- 
ceive religious training. And they, not being competent up 
to a certain age, to decide for themselves, it, of course, de- 
volves upon iheir parents to decide for them what kind and 
amount of religious instruction they shall receive. But all .re- 
ligious instruction, as such, should be given separate and apart 
fiom the public school system. In the public school every 
child should have imparted to it the instruction provided for 
it by the state, and this it should be required to take, up to 
a point at least ordinarily including the completion of high 
school work . 

As a matter of fact, all secular instruction and training 
should be in the hands of, or at least under the supervision of 
the state. Neither should private persons, companies or or- 
ganizations be permitted to exploit it or to profiteer from it. 

And all strictly religious instruction should be given in the 
time, place and manner desired by the devotees (but without 
interfering with the state's system) and supported by them 
as they themselves may desire or elect. 

Morality, however, being a matter of such direct interest 
to the community and the state and the nation, should be 
taught and training therein should be given throughout the 
public school system. This would in no way preclude or pre- 
vent training and instruction in this subject being given also 
in the pulpit, in the Sunday School, or in any ecclesiastical 
institution. But in order to insure that all receive such in- 
struction sufficiently and efficiently the public school should 
certainly give it. And a great deal more emphasis should be 
placed upon it and vastly more attention given to it than has 
been and is being done. 

The moral sense is the other of the two great gifts of 
God to distin,guish us from brutes. And it is just as suscepti- 
ble to right and efficient training as is the mind or the body. 
Also we have not been doing this job very well — nothing like 
so well as it could be done — else we should not see the moral 
tone of our people at such a low ebb as it is! That it is far 
too low is proved by the fact that we must keep eighty-two 



12 

thousand moral delinquents confined in penal institutions. 
Most of them are there because they did not receive proper 
irtoral training in their youth. It is clearly proven to any man 
who will merely take a stroll through the vast "tough" dis- 
tricts of any of our large cities and observe the other thous- 
ands of moral delinquents who do not happen to be in jail at 
that time. And more clearly still is it shown to each of us 
when we pause and ponder the petty dishonesties, cheatings, 
lyings and shaip practices almost universally indulged in in 
the ordinary transactions of business. These could not exist 
to anything like the extent that they do in a population that 
had received really efficient moral instruction in its youth. 

Why, one of our greatest institutions for instruction it- 
self is habitually so careless in its handling of the truth that 
it has become the common thing to hear the man in the street 
say, "I saw it in the newspaper. I don't know whether it is 
true or not." 

There is not much truth in the theory that the "good old 
days" contained about all there is that is good, and that we 
have not, in our day, anything that amounts to much. 

Those buildings, statues, statutes, books, pictures and other 
things of the "old days" that were really good have mostly sur- 
vived and have come do\Mi to us or to our knowledge, while the 
great numbers of poor and worthless things of those days 
have perished. That is all. In the ages yet to come, it will 
be our worthy^ things and thoughts that will have survived; 
and we shall be judged in our turn by these, and not by the 
vast amount of shoddy in our lives and works — just as it has 
been with the ancients. 

But there is one thing that we are almost compelled to 
believe was better in the olden time. It seems that whatever 
one saw in print then was generally believed. It may be that 
it was because people were more gullible than they are now; 
but I suspect it was because printers and publishers did not 
handle the truth quite so carelessly as they do now. That 
seems to be more or less of a "modern" habit. Let us hope 
it is only a temporary one. 

The freedom of the press is one of the greatest blessings 
that civil liberty has given to us. But those who operate the 
press do not seem to realize that along with this great liberty, 
freedom of the press, goes the obligation to tell the truth. 
When will they? Not until they and the people who read what 
they write, too, shall have received a higher and better moral 
training in their youth, I think. 

Practically every child that is born into the world holds 
the possibility within itself of being trained to high moral per- 
ceptions and practices. Nearly all of them are givei training 
and teaching in this regard far, far below their possibilities. 



13 

Often the moral part of the child's training is too nearly en- 
tirely neglected, both by parents and by teachers. But again 
how shall they teach who have not themselves been taught? 

In the minds of many parents and especially of many 
teachers, the subject of the moral sense of the child seems 
to be so bound up with religion that a great hesitation is felt 
in speaking of it. Also, many seem fearful of being thought 
platitudinous if they expound the great principles of morality. 
Platitudes! Platitudes! Let somebody quote from the Wise 
King's Proverbs, or from the maxims in the old copy-books, 
and stands some one by ready to sneer "Platitudes." 

Is the beauty of the rose a platitude? 

Are not the beauty of wisdom and the beauty of the rose 
alike new to each generation? 

Teach them. Train them. Therein and therein only lies 
the salvation of the Great Republic. 

4. AGRICULTURAL TRAINING. 

The greatest and most important business of the people of 
the United States is agriculture. More persons are engaged 
in it than in any other. And upon it all the other businesses 
and professions depend. Yet it is, in many respects, the most 
poorly carried on business of any. Why? Because those who 
are engaged in it have not been given anything approaching 
efficient training for it. Hardly any man or woman occupies 
a position in which a good working-knowledge of agriculture 
would not be helpful. Hardly any one occupies a position such 
that he or she would not be benefitted by actually practicing 
at least a little agriculture. The study of it would not only 
furnish excellent mental exercise, but the practice of it could 
and should be made to furnish valuable physical exercise ana 
recreation to nearly every person in our country. 

In view of these facts, it seems strange indeed that so 
little attention is given to it in the curricula of our schools. 
It is only lately that any attempt has been made to teach it 
at all, even in the rural schools, where one would think that 
the interest in it should be the greatest. And even yet it is 
safe to say that the time and attention devoted to it is not 
nearly one-tenth of what it should be. 

The interest in agriculture is so universal that practically 
every child in country and city should be given a thorough 
grounding in it. And this should include not only the theoreti- 
cal study of it, but should go hand in hand with its practical 
application . 

For this purpose, every school — both grade and high — 
should have attached to it a suitable plot of ground to be used 
by the students for practical work in agriculture. This sys- 
tem, properly instituted and operated', even for one generation, 



14 

would take this great science out of its slip-shod, hap-hazard 
methods of the past and present and place it upon the high 
plane where it belongs. And this would pay the expense of 
putting it into operation and of carrying it on ten-fold, in re- 
sulting better methods of production and distribution, in a 
much needed increased production and in an absolutely neces- 
sary conservation of resources. 

The United States and practically every individual state 
now maintain and operate expensive agricultural colleges and 
experiment stations. And these have, without exception, 
justified their existence and paid for themselves and for their 
maintenance many times over. But the people, the fanners, 
are not getting one per cent of the good from these institutions 
that they should be getting. Most of them do not know what 
is to be had from them. Many of them scarcely realize their 
existence. Hardly any farmers ever think of getting any help 
from these institutions at all, although there is scarcely a 
problem confronting the farmer that the experiment station 
has not worked out and issued bulletins on that would be of 
vast assistance. This condition of affairs could' not exist long 
if proper attention were being paid to training in agriculture 
in the schools and to giving the pupils full information as to 
what agricultural colleges and experiment stations can and will 
do in the further and fuller instruction of the agriculturist. 

But here again the training that can be given to the chil- 
dren of the first generation under this system cannot be near- 
ly so efRcient as that which would come to the second and in- 
creasingly to subsequent generations. For the teachers them- 
selves now, for the most part, do not know. How can they? 
They have not been taught. Nor shall we be able to get 
teachers and trainers who are competent in this respect with- 
out paying them a reasonable remuneration for their sei'vices. 

If M^e will pay our teachers enough, we can easily require 
and secure corresponding grades of service from them, even 
to being properly fitted for the teaching of agricultui-e. Pay 
them enough and they will fit themselves for it, and it will 
mean almost unimaginable wealth for us in the long run. 

The single item of raising the farmer's profession from 
the sneered-at and unpopular position in which it now stands 
to the high and much-soU(ght-for place which proper training 
in it and the excitation of a consequent proper interest in it 
would give, would repay many times over all that this proposed 
system of teaching it could possibly cost. 

The farmer's profession is loooking up some already, 
thanks to the educational work that has been done; but it is 
still in such a low state that hardly any of the brightest or the 
most energetic of our boys and girls will remain on the fann 
any longer than they can help. With the system that is here- 
in proposed put into operation, the standard of fami-life would 



15 

soon become so high, and the desirability of living in the coun- 
tiy so great that instead of begging people to come "back to 
the farm," we should probably be compelled to offer special 
inducements, a more moral atmosphere, cleaner streets and 
better sanitary conditions, in order to get enough people to live 
in the cities to carry on the work and business necessary to 
be done there. 

Do you know, I rather suspect that the great, populous 
city, all jammed up together, is soon going to be found out 
to be a mistake anyhow. I should not be sui-prised if it will 
be discovered, within the next few decades at least, that it is 
not necessary nor even desirable to have all the great factories 
in a city, like Pittsburg, right close up against each other, or 
all the great office-buildings and stores in great cities like New 
York and Chicago bunched and crowded into so small an area 
that the workers in these factories, offices and stores must 
live their lives in quarters far too crowded for their health, 
sanitation or any approach to a high standard of living. I 
look to see a scattering-out. The cities will probably become 
much larger in area, but not nearly so densely populated. That 
would certainly seem to be a desirable trend of affairs. 

And would not the teaching of agriculture to all school 
children, and the resultant awakening of a desire in each and 
every one of them to do at least a little planting and reaping 
have a powerful tendency to bring about this desirable scatter- 
ment of the cities, so that each worker of any kind could have 
at least a little garden where it would be the pleasure as well 
as the profit of him and his family to raise some vegetables 
and a few flowers? I know that they do not generally do that 
now, even when they live where ground is available; but they 
would if it was being taught in their schools. They do not 
know how yet. Neither have they had their interest aroused 
in the subject. 

And it seems to me that right now would be a very good 
time to press this idea of scattered-out systems of factories, 
etc. For we are just at the beginning of the development of 
vast hydro-electric systems of power. 

I have only touched upon a few of the enbiTnous and de- 
sirable results that would ensue from giving an efficient train- 
ing in agriculture to all of our school children; Its results 
would actually be more beneficial and far-reaching than we 
can imagine. We have the most desirable country in the 
worid as it is; but when we do that we shall have at least 
doubled its desirability. 

By all means let us estabhsh an efficient system of agri- 
cultural training for all our children in all our schools. 

Further on I shall tell you what many years of working 
on the subject has taught me about how it ought to be done. 



16 

5. MECHANICAL TRAINING. 

Mechanical training should also be universally given I'a 
our public schools. There is no person engaged in any occupa- 
tion whose efficiency would not be very greatly increased, 
either directly or indirectly, by having had a good basic train- 
ing in manual dexterity. And', as in all other things, the most 
effective way to teach and train them is to "catch them young." 

This training should probably first appe:ar as a fixed part 
of the regular course in the last two years of the grade school, 
and should continue for practically every pupil at least through- 
out the high school period. Some of the simpler forms of it 
might very profitably be made a part of the recreational exer- 
cises of the pupil from the time he started to school. It 
ought to be easy to make the whole course a pleasure and a 
recreation, rather than a burden, in the case of all pupils 
throughout their school career. By a proper arrangement and 
systemization of this and agricultural instruction, the long, dull 
hours of school, especially for the little folks, would be "long 
and dull" no more. 

But all this cannot be done without sufficient equipment. 
A false idea of economy makes most communities think that 
they are too poor to afford such expensive equipment as would 
be required. The truth of the matter is that we are too poor 
to do without it, and we shall continue to be poorer than we 
otherwise would be if we continue to be without it. It is not 
extravagance to pay whatever sums, large or small, are nec- 
essary to secure needed' tools and paraphernalia with which to 
work and teach. That economy which would cut these things 
down below their actual needs is a false economy, and will be 
advocated only through igno>*ance or a shoi-t-sightecl selfish- 
ness. We have far too much of it, and this can ouiy be i'em.- 
ed'ied by training the rising generation to know better. Those 
who are old and "set in their ways" cannot be taught very 
readily or very much. We shall be doing very well to teach 
them to let the rising generation be trained and taught. 

Here again arises the problem of obtaining efficient train- 
ers and teachers. And the solution to this is the same as the 
solution to the problem of getting efficient teachers in agricul- 
ture and other subjects. Pay enough for them and we shall 
get them. But we need not expect to get them by a pitiful 
little increase of ten or twenty-five per cent in the present 
salary of teachers. We need not expect to get efficient teach- 
ers and trainers in any department or subject by paying them 
less than the daily wage of an "unskilled" workman. 

The teacher — the right kind of teacher — has had to spend 
years of time and much cash in fitting- himself for his profes- 
sion. And if he continues to be the right kind of teacher 
he has to continue to spend time and money to continue train- 
ing and fitting himself. If he stops doing this he quickly falls 
behind in efficiency. 



17 

A district or a state, in making" up its budget for the 
payment of its teachers, should not work upon the plan of 
getting teachers at as low a price as possible; but should care- 
fully work out what salary a teacher should have in order to 
enable him to be compensated for the time and money he has 
had to spend in properly training himself for his job, plus 
enough to enable him to maintain a reasonably high standard 
of living for himself and his dependents and to lay by some- 
thing for his old age and the education of his children, and 
finally, plus enough to enable him to continue to keep himself 
well-trained and fit for the most efficient exercise of the duties 
of his noble profession. The sum of these should be the pay 
of those who are going to train our children for their life-work. 
Any teacher obtained for less than this will, in the long run, 
be dear at any price. You may occasionally pay the high 
price and get only the poor or mediocre teacher, but you will 
not have to keep him. He can be quickly replaced by a good 
one if the price is good. But certain it is that you can but 
seldom get the services of a good teacher for a poor salary, 
or if you do get him for a little while, you cannot hold him 
long . 

Our public school system is a rather young thing in the 
world and consequently very faulty and immature; but we are 
going to put into it mechanical training and all these other 
greatly-needed things, and under competent teachers and train- 
ers, too. And then the future generations are going to won- 
der why we were so dilatory and careless about such an im- 
portant matter, just as we wonder why the world has been so 
slow in recognizing the principles of civil and religious liberty. 

6. MILITARY TRAINING. 

Military training for boys and corresponding, suitable 
training for girls should be given to every pupil over ten years 
of age and should continue throughout each one's school ca- 
reer — even through college and the professional schools if the 
student takes these courses. There are several reasons for 
this, one of the principal ones being the splendid effect on the 
individual, physically, mentally and morally, which true and 
right military training (such as that to be had at West Point 
and Annapolis) imparts. Very few people seem to realize just 
what this sort of training does for one, and how great is the 
personal, individual need of it in our country. A \vise, pat- 
riotic statesman speaking on the floor of the United States 
Senate, referring to military trainin,g lately mentioned six bene- 
fits that would accrue, "Physical Development, Discipline, In- 
culcation of Patriotism, Americanization, Democratization, and 
Vocational Training." And he added that every one of these 
advantages can be made a certain and sure result of the right 
administration of the educational system that we now have. 



18 

One of our greatest editors added, "If Senator 's is 

the last word in the argument for universal Military Training, 
the answer is easy. Refoirn and strengthen the educational 
system now touching every family in the Republic until that 
system does efficiently the work for which it was established.". 
It is just this that is the aim and design of the plan and sys- 
tem proposed herein. 

Aside from the fact that about one-fourth of our young* 
men were shown to be physically unfit by the draft, one who 
knows what physical competency really means cannot help but 
be struck, as he goes about from day to day, by the slouchy 
carriage, gawky walk, stoop-shouldered and generally physical- 
ly-faulty appearance of nearly all our boys and girls. It is 
painful to look at, and it is especially so when one remembers 
that these things are the accompaniments of and oftentimes 
the causes of serious physical defects. It would not matter 
so much if these faults were confined to a comparatively small 
percentage of our people, but they are not. They are nearly 
universal. They are a great factor for unhappiness and in- 
efficiency with most of our people throughout their lives. 

Now, military training of the right kind — the National 
Academies kind — if administered young and universally, will 
nearly obliterate these defects. 

No one can doubt this who has seen hundreds of gawky, 
stoop-shouldered, hollow-^chested, shambling boys enter a good 
military school and ^ome out four years later, nearly everyone 
erect of carriage, healthful, physically fit and manly and court- 
eous in bearing. 

You do not think that such military training could be ad- 
ministered to practically all of our youth? Nor that a corres- 
ponding suitable system of training could be given to practi- 
cally all of our girls? It could and I am going to tell you 
further on a little bit of how it could be inaugerated and car- 
ried on. 

If military training (always of the right kind) did no 
other good than the physical benefits it confers, it would still 
be well worth while to give it to all of our boys and its cor- 
responding counteiiDart to all of our girls. 

What a splendid physical race would be the result! 

But the mental methods of most of our boys and girls are 
as slip-shod, inefficient and full of laziness and other bad habits 
as are their physical. The amount of actual training how to 
reason and think and study is all too small both in the fam- 
ily and in the school. Parents and teachers, for the most 
part, do not know how themselves. And the general run of 
them will not until we bring up a generation that does know 
how a little bit more, and the next more still, and so on. 
But even this slow remedying of these awfully bad conditions 
will not be done unless we set about it, and that in the right 



19 

way. Of course, there are parents and teachers who do iii- 
sist that their children and pupils shall study int-elligent'y, 
speak and write clearly and reason correctly, and who do know 
how to train their pupils to do these things, too. But the number 
is all too few — a mere handful as it were. I know of no system 
of trainin,g- in which this invaluable instruction is given practi- 
cally universally, as it should be, except that in vogue at the 
National Academies and in those schools which follow them 
closely as models. And I know of very few of these latter 
that give it universally and successfully except under the direct 
supervision of a National-Academy graduate. 

The mere training of all our young people of the coming 
generation to think logically, study closely, speak good English 
and reason correctly would do more to solve the vast political, 
economic and social questions that are before us and will con- 
tinue to come up than anything else n-na,ginable . Ours is not 
only a Govemmenc of the people, for the people, by the peo- 
ple, but it is an economic system and a social system of the 
people, for the people, by the people. Should any stone be left 
unturned then which will discover to our rising generation the 
right way? Should we be satisfied until we are giving to ev- 
ery individual of each generation in succession the best of 
training and all the training necessary for the highest fulfill- 
ment of his duties and privileges? 

But the .greatest result that I can foresee flowing from 
the practically universal giving of military training "in our 
schools is the moral result. The properly trained military man 
does not lie. He does not half lie or handle the truth careless- 
ly. His training has been such that he cannot do these things 
and then go on living with himself. This is the ideal that 
exists in the National Academies, and the men who go through 
th«m are pretty generally and thoroughly impregnated with 
it. Also it stays with them, for the most part, all of their 
lives. Sometimes an ineradicable hereditary kink develops and 
leads one of them astray, but not often. Sometimes the 
loose, low moral tone of the time and the community causes 
some of them to forget and fall, but it is seldom. The men 
who have been through these schools are, tor the most part, 
idealists, and yet living a very practical life of service to their 
fellow-men and to their country. And it is the training that 
they have received that has made them such. They have 
come from the people, and they were and are, at base, just 
like the people they sprung from — not diiferent at all. Now 
the point is that a proper adaptation of the same sort of 
training, administered to all the people when they are young, 
will produce the same sort of results. 

The fact is the moral tone of every one of us is far too 
low. Do you know anybody about whom some one or more 
of his neighbors do not tell some story of a "scaly trick"? 
How many business men do you know who do not engage in 



20 

shai-p practices? Just how high is the standard of honesty 
among the various men and women that you know and have 
deahngs with? How many do you know who will at all times 
voluntarily speak the truth to their own hurt? Just stop and 
think a minute and tell yourself how many you know who are 
not cheating or lying or profiteering or doing some other unso- 
cial thing, at least just a little bit. 

Now, all of these evil things are, for the most part, the 
results of training that these people have received — training 
of the wron,g sort. It will not be difficult to pretty nearly 
eradicate these evils in a few generations if we go about it 
right — "Catch them young" and teach, teach, teach and train, 
train, train all of them in the right way. Do not leave any 
of them out of it. Every one so left out and failirig to re- 
ceive the right kind of training acts as a drag to pull do\\Ti- 
ward the moral tone and life-practices of the others. Just so 
the almost universally too low moral and business standard's 
that exist today act to drag down, consciously or unconscious- 
ly, the standards of teaching of parents and teachers. The 
result is that both say and' do too little about this phase of 
training our youth; and often, indeed, that instruction which 
is given is very, very faulty. Shai-p practices and near-dis- 
honesties are told and even lauded in some of the text books; 
and stories abounding in commendation and even praise 
of these things are current literature of the day. 
All this shows a mighty unhealthy condition, and, if 
we are going to try to run a political, economic and so- 
cial system founded on anything like Justice, we had better 
set about establishing a higher standard for the moral train- 
ing of our youth. 

This sort of training will surely result in the right kinds 
of social, economic and political systems; but no great matter 
what kind of systems the nation may be working under, if 
the units are receiving in youth training such as this, the re- 
sult is bound to be pretty good — and if one or more of these 
systems are wrong or faulty, the people, properly trained while 
young, will soon right them. 

There be many who hold up their hands in "holy horror" 
and cry that military training in our public schools will lead 
us right straight into "Militarism" — Pnissianism. But it will 
not. That is, the right kind of military training will not. 
The Prussian kind of training would, but the Swiss or Austra- 
lian kind M'Ould not. In the German system, the military was 
always first, the civil a far-behind second; the standing army 
was big and its officers formed a caste derived almost exclus- 
ively from the so-called nobility; the training was given for 
a period of two or three years, taking up all of the man's 
time during that period and pounding incessantly into him that 



21 

false doctrine that only the soldier, the military man, counted 
— that the civilian did not amount to much. And most perni- 
cious of all, their doctrine and their training left out all or 
nearly all of the ethics, the training in morale. On the con- 
trary they taught treachery and lying and baseness of all kinds 
"for the good of the Fatherland." And they put these things 
into practice, thinking it was the thing to do. The world 
taught them some better, and must teach them more yet. 

No doubt they thought they were giving their people mili- 
tary training, but they were not. That was not military train- 
ing, or any kin to it. It was, in its most vital respects, ex- 
actly the opposite. 

There is danger in military training — very great danger 
— unless the right kind is given and in the right way. I 
would oppose with all the power there is in me the introduc- 
tion of the Prussian system in our country; for I know it 
would ultimately do to us what it did to them — give us the 
"big head," and establish caste-distinctions and accentuate the 
many class distinctions already exi^iting. But that is iio rea- 
son for condemning a right system of military training — one 
that would make us better citizens first and better soldiers also, 
and would go farther toward I'eai democratization than any- 
thing else in the world. 

Suppose you have an evil man for a neighbor, and sup- 
pose he raises peaches and extracts i'ydrocyaiiic acid from the 
pits and uses it to poison his neighbors' stock and even his 
neighbors' families. Does that fui?.ish any good reason for 
you to quit raising peaches and making good use of them? 

That is about what Germany did with her military system. 
She built it on a wrong foundation and then she abused it — 
used it feloniously; but that does not alter the fact that there 
is much more good in the peach than there is poison in the 
pit, and that the good can be used and the poison pits thrown 
away . 

So long as this world contains nations that are still bar- 
barians in many respects ; so long as some of the nations are 
tigers and lions and wasps and hyenas and snakes; just so 
long will other nations have to keep themselves militarily 
strong, or be wiped out of existence — made slaves of. 

The doctrine of turning the other check is mighty good 
doctrine upon the proper occasion for its use; but when the evil 
ones get to desecrating the Temple, it is high time to take a 
cudgel in the hand. And even the most upright nations must 
continue to do that, too. 

There are two and only two ways of becoming and re- 
maining militarily strong: 

First, with a big "standing amiy," with its vast horde of 
professional soldiers and teachers, taking all able-bodied men 



22 

for a period of training of at least one or two years *just at 
a time when they can least spare the time and the country 
can ill spare them from civilian life, or — 

Second, a system of military training in the schools, such 
as, but better than, that in Switzerland and Australia, coupled 
with a comparatively small "standing army," and a compara- 
tively short practice-period for the already trained Reserves 
each year. 

In. the first case, we would have to have a standing army 
of at least a million — probably very soon two millions. There 
would soon develop a military caste. Monarchy and hereditary 
nobility would come down on us "like night," and a Prussian- 
istic system would soon seal the grave of our liberties, give 
us the "swelled head" and make us mad enough also to think 
that we could and should whip and rule the world. 

With the other system the training would be of the right 
kind, and given at the right time and without interfering 
with the civilian duties of the recipient, and actually a.ssistin;^ 
grpatly in his general education and training. His training 
would' teach him that the civilian and civilian duties come first 
and that the soldier, as such, is always subordinate thereto. 
Foi' there would be no necessity for a great army — three hun- 
dred thousand, or at most, five hundred thousand, for a "first 
line" and only enough extra officers to supervise training would 
be sufficient. For, back of this standing anny, after this sys- 
teni had been in operation for a few years, would be coming 
into a properly organized, trained and ready Reserve more than 
four hundred thousand annually. In twenty years, more than 
eight millions of trained, organized, officered, and with aiTns 
and equipments ready to hand, in case of need; but still all 
primarily civilians, citizens — not thirsting for conquest nor 
military glory, nor amenable to the beck and call of any tyrant 
— merely ready and capable of defending their country when- 
ever need should arise and the people themselves, through their 
representatives, demanded it. 

Let us have this system of military training, not the Prus- 
sian one. 

Let us raise peaches and eat the fruit, throwing away the 
poisonous pits. 



* Any attempt to train these men sufficiently in two or 
three or four months, if they have had little or no mihtary 
training in school, will prove so ineffectual that it would soon 
be expanded into at least one or, more likely, two years. 



23 

7. BUSINESS TRAINING. 

The kind of training herein recommended for the youth 
of our country would be an asset of enormous and incalculable 
value in the conduct of business. How many business man- 
agers now find the work of their associates and employes real- 
ly efficient? The lack of such efficiency is probably one of the 
most serious handicaps under which we suffer. 

Heretofore such business training as did e-xist has been, 
almost exclusively in private hands, and it has been a rnere 
patchwork that has proven sadly lacking. Again the principal 
reason has been that it was not given systematically and was 
not begun early enough, and was not given to nearly all. 
Every man and every woman, when grown-up, would be the 
better for having had a correct training in at least the rudi- 
m,ents and basic principles of business. 

An eminent authority * on this subject says, "The third 
fundamental is the development of efficiency, in fitting the 
individual for self-support and effective living. It is not dif- 
ficult to show that the present system of our schools in this 
respect could be improved. One example must suffice. 

"It has been found that, generally speaking, the average 
college graduate is able to earn at first not quite as much as 
a first-class cai-penter or brick-layer. It is true that the 
potential power of the graduate is not expressed by such wag- 
es, but while most prove to be of higher value, the fact re- 
mains that too many do not. 

"And why do not these young men succeed better? Very 
often because they over-rate the importance of scholarship and 
under-rate qualities which make for efficiency, such as prompt- 
ness, persistence, exactness, sense of order, and the like. 

■These are the qualities especially cultivated 



by military education. 

"Indeed the same qualities are just as valuable to girls, 
whether they must earn a living or show efficiency in the home 
circle . 

"The plan of military training here referred to has al- 
ready been found to work admirably in Switzerland and Aus- 
tralia . 



* Dr. Lucien Howe, memb. Royal Coll. Surg. Eng., Fel. 
Royal Soc. Med., Buffalo, N. Y., in the Journal of the Mili- 
tary Service Institution for July-August, 1915. 



24 

"By these systems, especially by the one formulated for 
Australia by Lord Kitchener, the body of the boy and girl is 
molded while the bones are hardening and the muscles develop- 
ing. Soldierly methods and habits become a part of the boy's 
being. Or the girl has the advantages of those methods and 
habits as they can be modified for her. Later the boy per- 
fects himself as a soldier especially during vacations, and con- 
tinues to report with his regiment (for short periods of train- 
ing) until he is old enough to retire'. 

"Meanwhile he is not obliged to give up home and busi- 
ness for two or three of the most important years of his life, 
as do tl^e recruits in most European countries. Above all he 
remains ordinarily a peaceful man — a civilian. But if the 
nation need's him, in a moment he changes, he is a soldier, 
trained and ready. Such a plan of military education could 
be developed here, at least in part, from Federal laws which 
alreadj^ exist." 

How would you feel Mr. Busmess Man, if you woke up 
some morning and found that practically all of your associat- 
es and your employes had actually received and assimilated 
an effective course in physical fitness, mental and moial ef- 
ficiency, manly or womanly (but unfailing) respect lor pro- 
perly constituted authority, "promptness, persistence, exact- 
ness, sense of order, and the like"? Would it not lift a bur- 
den from your shoulders? And would not your elation be in- 
creased ten-fold if you also found that, in ail the other busi- 
nesses and undertakings with which you come in contact, the 
same conditions had come to exist? It would, unless you are 
one of those whose training has been of such a wai*ped and 
twisted kind that you expect your partner and your employes 
to be square and honest with you, and at the same time to lie 
and cheat and steal and engage in all sorts of shaip practices 
for your benefit. If this latter is your point of view, then 
the training that you have received is of a very sad kind, and 
it is time for you to set about helping to establish and put in 
operation a better system for your child'i'en and your children's 
children . 

Another writer in the Journal of the Military Service Id' 
stitution as far back as 1912 said: 

"But I hear an objector say that we theorists do not 
realize that business honesty in these days, beyond a certain 
respectable point, is absolutely suicidal to the business, great 
or small, that indulges in it. That one must beat his com- 
petitors at their own game; must fight the devil with fire. 

"That is just what I think that I do realize, and the sys- 
tem of training which I propose is intended to raise the moral 
tone of the youth of the land — of the entire next generation 
of business men — and all together. I realize that for any one 
or any hundred men to try to throw off all at once all the 
shaip practices of business men and present-day competition 



25 

would mean to them certain bankruptcy. But by training 
simultaneously all our youth, a system can be built up in 
which these same sharp practices and dishonesties could be 
and would be practically ehminted. If such a system of 
training were given to our youth for, say, twenty years, the 
man who engaged in such prr-^^tices would be the exception 
rather than the rule. Practices that are today regarded as 
ordinary business customs would disappear, and the man who 
attempted to resort to them would be as much taboo and 
frowned upon as is the horse-thief of today . Twenty years 
from the time we take up and introduce this system of train- 
ing for our youth, the merchant \yho displayed the sign 'Was 
$25.00; Now $18.99' over a suit of clothes that he had been 
selling before the 'mark-down' for $17.50 would not have half 
a dozen customers a day enter his store. Moreover, few could 
be found who would be willing to cheat or to defraud, even 
though they knew that they would never be caught at it. 
Men v>'ho have been given such training as that proposed could 
not get the consent of their own souls to do such a thing." 

Do I hear the objector say again, "But you cannot change 
human nature?" That is an old lie. Yes, you can. It has 
been done and it is being done every day. How? By train- 
ing. It has been done in this very matter of honesty and 
fair-dealing in Iceland until cheating, stealing and fraud are 
unknown there. And Iceland is not such an easy place to 
drag a living out of old Mother Earth either. 

Everyone of us knows som.ebody whom we think is "per- • 
fectly honest," and he probably is. How did he get that way? 
By training. No other way on earth. "Human Nature" is 
more or less nearly a blank in early childhood, and it becomes 
what it is in the case of each individual exclusively through 
the training it receives, whether from within itself or (most- 
ly) from the outside. There is no man on earth today, who 
if he had been taken young enough and systematically and per- 
sistently given a certain kind of vicious training — the same 
kind that many of our country's children are getting today — 
would not have turned out vicious himself. His "Human Na- 
ture" would have been changed — warped, twisted and defoiTn- 
ed. Conversely there is no criminal today, barring a few — a 
comparatively very few — cases of congenital degeneration of 
intellect and moral sense, who, had he been taken young enough 
and given just the right system and kind of training would not 
have developed into a good, honest, upright and useful citizen. 

Does it not behoove us then to set about giving such a 
system of training to all of our youth ? 

Would you not like to have a set of people who had re- 
ceived such training around you to assist you and be associat- 
ed with you in your business? 

"Let's go!" 



26 

8. ECONOMIC TRAINING. 

The man with money has been the one who has almost 
exclusively managed, controlled and "bossed," if you please, our 
business and economic conditions up to the present time. And 
he has not done it very well. In fact, he has made quite a 
mess of it. Sometimes he has done fairly well on the pro- 
duction side — though he has usually been far from efficient in 
that. But he has fallen down badly indeed upon the distribu- 
tion problem. Why? Because he was not and is not proper- 
ly trained, physically, mentally or morally, nor in his own spe- 
cialty . 

And now comes the woi'ker, the laborer, the proletarian 
and points the finger of scorn at the capitalists' failures and 
cries "Give me the reins! Let me drive! I alone can do it 
right !" 

He will fail, too, even worse than the other did ; for his 
training has been and is even far less thorough than was that 
of the capitalist. 

Probablv our economic safety and salvation — that of the 
whole world, in fact — lies in a joint and partnership control 
between Capital and Labor. It must be a system where those 
most capable of directing are the directors and those most 
capable of handwork are doing that. And the methods of 
assignments to these places and the rewards thereof must be 
just and equitable. But how can these things be? They have 
not been so under exclusive capitalistic control. Far from it. 
They would be even much less so under e^xclusive proletarian 
control ; for which of those who labor only with their hands 
have had any of the tr.-^ining absolutely necessary for the man- 
agement and control of great industrial operations? 

Neither will ioint control, noi- any other system of econ- 
omics ever succeed unless both the brain-workers and the hand- 
workers have had at least the basic training necessary to 
make them efficient in their respective spheres. And the basic 
training for the brain-worker and for the hand-worker needs 
to be practically the same. It is what each and every one 
should receive in his school-training in the time of his youth. 
There should be physical training for everyone, for physical 
fitness is the first essential for the highest efficiency in any 
position. There should be mental training for all. too. for 
there is no job that is not better done by the use upon it of 
an alert and well-trained mind. Above all, there should be 
moral training — training that will fix in the mind of the re- 
cipient the principles of justice and right and tolerance; the 
training that will enable him to see the other person's point 
of view instead of perceiving only what his own prejudice and 
intolerance present to him; training that will go to the limit 
in wiping out the almost ineradicable differences that exist be- 
tween those who direct the work and those who do the work. 



27 

between those who work with their brains and those who work 
with their hand's. 

And there must be training in disciphne. The word car- 
ries to many an idea of punishment. That is not what is 
meant. Oi' course, military disciphne has a specia' technical 
meaning. * That is not what I mean, either, though it is 
somewhat analogous to it. I would say that, Discipline is 
that quality possessed by efficient human beings which causes 
each to appreciate and accept without question the duties, 
powers and limitations of his position (but without precluding 
the use of legitimate means to better that position) M'hich in- 
spires each with confidence in the efficiency and moral stead- 
fastness of his associates and comrades; and which makes in- 
stant and heart-whole compliance with the laws, rules, regula- 
tions and directions of properly constituted authority a second 
nature (but not precluding proper eff'oi'ts by lawful means to 
prevent abuse of power or to make proper and lawful efforts 
to secure changes in laws, rules, regulations and directions 
that are believed to be wrong or hamiful) . The obligations 
of the administrator to administer efficiently and lawfully are 
fully as great as are those for whom he administers to com- 
ply or obey. 

Discipline, when real, is as much an attribute of the head- 
manager as of the humblest worker. It applies to all alike. 

And there must be training in "promptness, persistence, 
exactness, sense of order and the like." 

But all these are the thing^s in which, we are proposing 
to give training to the youth of our land — to all of them, re- 
member . 

How would you, Mr. Brain Worker, like to have those who 
are your hand-working comrades in the work all be men and 
women who had been trained and brought up under a system 
like this — whose training had been such that you had the ut- 
most faith in their efficiency and moral steadfastness? 

And how would you, Mr. Hand Worker, like to have all 
those who were directing and supervising the work be men and 
women who, likewise, had received such a course of training? 
Would you not be mighty glad to yield instant and heartfelt 
compliance to the just and lawful rules, regulations and di- 
rections of an authority so trained? 

If anything on Earth will solve the pei-plexing and' puzzling 



* "IVIilitary Discipline is that quality possessed by efficient 
soldiers which causes each to appreciate and accept without 
question the powers and limitations of his rank; which in- 
spires each with confidence in the military steadfastness of 
his comra^ea, and makes obedience to his lawful superiors a 
second nature." — CoL Arthur L. Wagner. 



28 

economic and industrial problems that are upon us, it certainly 
would be such a system of training for all of our youth. 

And these problems must be solved, and solved right, or 
we shall soon be on the j-oad back to savagery and barbarism 
— back to a night beside which the "Dark Ages" were as light 
as the noonday sun. 

For forces have already come into being which are too 
mighty for mar. in his present low and untrained ethical state. 
In many cases the facilities for destruction are already too 
great for the moral resistance he has to offer to using them. 

And greater forces still are knocking at our doors — some 
of them are just about to enter, probably. Heretofore most 
of our mechanical forces have been obtained from, 

a. The use of wind and waterfalls, and', 

b. The heat obtained from combustion. 

These things are powerful enough for destruction when 
they get into the hands of an ignorant, vicious and untrained 
bunch of us humans now, we all know. But what will occur 
if it should happen that we are still in this low state of men- 
tal, and especially moral training when the possibility of using 
and directing forces a thousand times as big and powerful as 
any we now know of shall come to us? The late discovery of 
the disintegration of certain substances heretofore considered' 
to be simple elements, with the accompying lelease of enoiTnous 
amounts of energy, certainly fore-shadows such a condition. 

What use are we poor, nearly-untrained, low-minded and 
ethically inefficient human wretches going to make of this 
power when it does come to us? What uses do we make today 
of water and fire and lightning? Are all our uses of them 
good ? 

I cannot help but echo the prayer of the great scientist 
who lately outlined the possibility of the coming of this great 
addition to our available mechanical powers. Pray God it 
come not until we are ethically and economically ready for it. 

And that shall be when we have adopted and put into 
operation a suitable system of training to make us and' our- 
children after us ready. 

Let us do that. 

9. CIVIC TRAINING. 

Mexico is supposed to be a republic. It is not. Why?' 
Because her people lack the training necessary to institute and: 
operate a republic. 

Russia started out a while ago to be<'ome a republic. She 
did not because her people lacked the training necessary even to 
start a republic going . 

. China is calhng herself a republic and is honestly trying, 
to be one; but she is. .having a very hard time of it, and for'" 
the same reason. Her people, too, lack almost entirely the- 



29 

training- that is necessary in any government of the people, 
for the people, by the people. The Chinaman may succeed 
for he has been trained through many generations in one of 
the prime essentials — business integ^rity. It may pull him 
through if he submits himself to a course of training that will 
give him the other essentials. 

The Great Republic, the United States of America, has 
come mighty near going on the rocks once, primarily because 
in the early days she had failed to so train herself morally 
and ethically as to see the great crime of the slave-trade, and 
later to realize the crime of slavery itself. 

We have as big" civic problems before us today as we have 
ever had, and more of them are coming up right along*. Some 
of them are going to bump us very hard ; and unless we train 
the rising generation for the tasks that are coming, they arc 
not going to be equal to them. The kind and amount of train- 
ing that our young people are getting now is not going to suf- 
fice for the solution of the big questions that are coming up 
twenty years and thirty years from now. If the training of 
all of our people for their civic duties had been half as good 
and thorough in the last generation as that herein proposed, 
then we should not now be witnessing the alarming spectacle 
of one man or set of men continually "rocking the boat." 
They did not get enough training in doing unto others as they 
would have others do unto them in the last generation. 
Neither did they get enough training in telling the truth and 
abstaining from falsehoods. I do not know whether the big 
story published in the Moon or the diametrically opposite 
statement published in the Stars yesterday was the truth. 
But I know that they were not both true. These things are 
matters of frequent occurrence — so frequent that one is forced 
to the conclusion that our editors have not much real concep- 
tion of the fact that they are under an obligation to tell the 
truth — must train themselves to do it, and must do it. It 
goes along with "freedom of the press." 

And editors are a pretty good index to what other men 
are, too. Editors are not alone in their lying — they are not 
even pre-eminent m it. They are only just about the average. 
I do not know whether Mr. Gilbert Goober, the great heat 
distributci, did this or that or the other or not. But when 
one high-up official says that he did, and another says just as 
emphatically that he did not, then I know that there has been 
something wrong in the moral and ethical training of at least 
one of these politicians. This kind of thing would not mean 
anything and would not matter much if it only occurred oc- 
casionally; but it happens far too often. It makes us lose 
faith in our politicians and in. our statesmen — yes, even in our 
fellowmen. , , ^ 

I do not. know whether goyemment, operation, of .-.railroads 
would be a good thing or not, if it were given a fair trial 



30 

under normal conditions. I do not know enough about the 
subject to be able to decide the question in my own mind. 
And I hope I shall never be one to go about making "half- 
baked" decisions. That is one of the things that untrained 
people are very fond of doing. 

But I do know that it is not right to run the railroads 
on "the-public-be-damned" plan when the government is oper- 
ating them. I have seen that being done, and apparently the 
hi.'^-h railroad officials '"vlio instigated it and caused it to be 
done had no other object in doing so than just to discredit and 
make unpopular government operation. 

I Imow that the railroad officials who did this had not been 
trained to "play fair", nor to "fight fair" in their youth. And 
a pretty extensive observation proves to me that they were 
all in on it. Let us inaugurate a system that will train the 
rising generation not to do things like that. No use to try 
to teach these oldsters better. We must "catch 'em young." 

The same thing applies to operatives who, after the re- 
turn of the railroads to their owners, seem to have run and 
operated them as inefficiently as possible in order to force them 
to be again taken over by the General Government. Their 
early training, too, has been faulty or lacking. 

The amount of civic advancement that would be made by 
a thoroughly trained population is almost inconceivable. 

The proper physical training of all of our young people 
would add much to the civic efficiency of our people, as it 
would to all other kinds of efficiency. 

Their proper, complete and universal mental training would 
add even more to our civic efficiency. 

But the greatest benefit of all would come from the train- 
ing in moral and ethical principles. 

There are vast fields of civic benefits, ripe foi* the sickle, 
that we cannot — dai'e not — tiy to reap now because of our too 
low general moral tone. Because our standard of right and 
wrong is not high enough to risk our trying to do some of 
these things. We do not dare trust each other about them. 

For example, there is no doubt that certain fonns of 
criminality are hereditarily transmissible. Now, the ethical 
standard of men in the medical profession is probably as high 
as that of any other calling in the world. But is that stan- 
dard high enough at present to justify society in giving to 
the doctors the power to say what pei'sons are such criminals 
that they should be sterihzed in order to prevent the birth of 
congenital criminals into the world? It ought to be, but is 
it? No, and it will not be until a thorough system of moral 
and ethical training is given to every child from his youth up. 

Again many persons are so afflicted' with diseases or de- 
formities of body or brain that they should not become par- 
ents. Indeed, the whole subject of Eugenics is fraught with 
great possibilities for benefit to the human race. But the 



31 

difficulty is that, in our present state of low moral tone, we 
have not doctors or anybody else whom we are willing to trust 
with the powers that are nece-ssarily involved. If we knew 
that capable decisions would be made honestly, we would, most 
of us, probably be in favor of putting into operation the simp- 
ler and better-known principles of Eugenics, Birth-Control, etc. 
But we have not faith enough in ihe moral and ethical stead- 
fastness of our comrades. And we have reason for it. We 
know that, as a whole, they have not received the training in 
these things in their youth necessary to bring them up to that 
high standard. Let us now begin so to train our youth that a 
future generation will be capable of grappling with these big 
questions . 

10. SPECIAL TRAINING. 

Great progress has been made in various phases of special 
training already; and, in general, it is probably as far advanced 
in our country as anywhere else in the world. In many res- 
pects we stand at the top. And yet, as in the matter of gen- 
eral training, we are far, far below where we ought to be and 
where we must attain, if we are to reach our highest possible 
plane of efficiency. 

Every defective, as well as every normal person, should 
be so trained as to bring out the very best there is in him. 

And every person should be a specialist in his own parti- 
cular line. There should be no "unskilled workers," not even 
among those engaged in the humblest occupations. 

It does not pay either the individual or the nation to have 
in it workers who are unskilled in the particular jobs upon 
which they are engaged. 

And, as in the case of all other training, the basic ele- 
ments must be given while the one to be trained" is still young. 
It is very hard for one to learn how to learn after he gets 
old. 

Our system should therefore include special provisions for 
the training of: 

a . Defectives. 

In every community, due to one cause or another there 
are children bom who are either mentally, morally or physical- 
ly defective. Others become defective through accident, sick- 
ness or neglect after birth. 

Many of these defects can be improved or even removed" 
by a systematic and continued system of proper training. In- 
deed, there are few defective children but could be so trained' 
as to make of them valuable and useful citizens, and thereby 
bring into their lives great happiness. They are entitled ta 
this training and to the power for usefulness and the resulting" 
happiness that it would bring them; it is not their fault thaf 
they labor under a handicap in the world. 



32 

And, for the most part, this special training for defectives 
must be given by the state. Only specialists who have made 
a profound study of these subjects can administer it efficient- 
ly. Very few parents are able financially to employ such spe- 
cialists, and even if they were, it would be a great economic 
waste to employ them for separate individuals. But the train- 
ing — appropriate training — ^should be given to all. None should 
be left out — at least, none whose life could" be made bigger and 
broader by the training. 

Yes, we have schools and institutions for the training o:f 
defectives — both public and private institutions. But there are 
not enough of them or, at least, their capacity is not big 
enough and the training given is mostly too meagre in quan- 
tity and too poor in quality. Why? For the most part, be- 
cause of parsimony — a niggardly and wasteful so-c?lled econ- 
omy in the public institutions ; because of exploitation and ex- 
cess profit-taking in the private institutions. The state 
should supply efficient and ample training, and no such "graft" 
or profiteering should be permitted to exist . 

This problem of training our defectives requires vastly 
more study and attention than we have ever given to it. It 
is a complex thing. But it can be solved, and we must do it. 
Any neglect of a thing like that debases the tone of our own. 
moral steadfastness and lowers the standard of true living in 
every one of us, besides being a great wrong and injustice to 
the neglected ones. Every mental, moral and physical incom- 
petent, whose aflfliction could have been removed or benefitted 
hy training, and has not been, is, partly, your fault and mine. 
There are obligations as well as benefits that go along with 
living in a country "of the people, for the people, by the 
people." 

I wish to call especial attention to our poor training and 
lack of training of our moral defectives. I doubt if there 
would be many if they were given a thorough system of the 
right kind of training from their early youth up, especially if 
their parents before them had been given such training as 
would fit them to give the right kind or parental training to 
their children. But we do have them, and they are numerous, 
and the fact that we do not handle them right nor train them 
right is fully evidenced by the vast number of criminals and 
the still greater number of the "underworld" characters that 
our system turns out. Let us put some bright minds to work 
on this vital problem and solve it. 

One of the greatest blessings that a really efficient sys- 
tem of training, such as herein proposed, will bring to us wdll 
be the decrease and ultimately the almost practical cessation 
of having persons bom into the world mentally or morally or 
physically unfit. But, as previously stated, we are not ready 
to give to anybody the authority to exercise such powers. 



33 

We are not as yet morally up to the standard of being cap- 
able of exercising- such powers wisely and justly. And we 
shall not be until we have had long years of training — perhaps 
for generations. But the time will come*. 

I hope to get great pleasure from coming back here and 
taking a peep at this human race a few generations after this 
system of training and the higher and better systems that 
shall be evolved' therefrom are put into operation. The strides 
made in the material and mechanical world, vast as they are 
and vaster still as they are going to be, will look mighty small 
beside what humanity itself is going to train itself into doing 
and being. Do you help. 

b . Specialists. 

We have not enou,gh schools and institutions for the train- 
ing of specialists. We have not nearly enough pupils in those 
that we do have. And" the cun'icula of those that we do have 
fall short in many of the foremost essentials. 

As previously stated, every one should be a trained specia- 
list in the work upon which he is engaged. 

Trainin,g in the greatest specialty of all — parenthood — is 
in a very low state. It may be that the United States excel 
all other countries in this, as they do in many other things. 
But even so, that does not alter the fact that training in pre- 
paration for parenthood is far and' away below a reasonably 
good standard of efficiency. Mighty little systematic and ef- 
ficient training in this important subject is given ; and much 
of that which is given is faulty and full of errors. For this, 
children suffer, and the rising generation, in their turn, do not 
know how to be good' parents. 

A large part of the training of every child, both at home 
and in school, ought to look to the making of it possible for 
him or her to be a good parent. 

Of course, this cannot be done in the home if the parents 
themselves do not know how, because they have received no 
such training. The profession of bein^g a good parent is not 
wholly instinctive; but, on the contrary, is capable of high 
development by training. 

And equally, of course, the child cannot receive that part 
of this training which should' be given in school if the teacher 
is unfamiliar with it. And how shall the teacher know it and 
give it if he has not received training therein? 

I know that there be many who seem to believe that 
"Good Morals and Gentle Manners"are instinctive in some and 
instinctively absent in others. It is not so. These are the 
things ^vhich are at the foundation of the capacity for good 
and efficient parenthood; and they come mostly through train- 
ing — early training. 

To give really efficient sanitation and proper medical at- 
tention to all of our people would probably require fully twice 



34 

as many doctors and dentists, many more hospitals and a 
great many more trained nurses than we have. 

That the curricula and training given by many of the 
medical institutions are much below par is evidenced by the 
number of quacks and charlatans that we have practicing and 
profiteering upon the ignorance, superstitions, afflictions and 
fears of our people. 

I shall have something to say later on about the cost of 
operating this proposed system of training. But I want to 
hazard the opinion right here that, great as the expense of it 
will be — and it will be enormous — the saving that will be made- 
to our people by training them to weigh correctly the true 
values of patent medicines, and worthless nostrums, and thus 
eliminating most, if not all of them, will be far more than the 
whole system is going to cost us. 

The beneficial results in the increase of efficient medical 
practitioners, in the establishment of efficacious sanitary con- 
ditions, the operation of a proper hospital system, and the 
training and employment of a large enough number of well- 
qualified nurses will be beyond calculation. 

If this system did nothing more than train our people in 
a correct general knowledge of these things it would pay fqj:' 
itself ten times over. 

There' are about seven million fanners in the United States. 
How many of them have had a special course of training 
in agriculture ? Seven millions ought to have had ; for it is 
one of the most complex and technical vocations in the world. 
Possibly one in three hundred has had such a course of train- 
ing or, at least, a part of it; but I doubt if the proportion is 
that great. It is proposed in this system to train everyone 
in the basic principles of this subject, and to place a complete 
course of training in it within the reach of practically all who 
are going to engage in it, and to make the inducements so 
great and the advantages so evident that, ultimately, practi- 
cally all of them will take it, too. 

We have a little pinched and scrawny system of special 
training for teachers. We have capacity for training about 
one-tenth as many as we ought to have. And of those we do 
train, a very few are given anything like a full and complete 
course of training. Probably our curricula in these institu- 
tions are as faulty as in any other profession. 

But the proposed system would correct all that and at the 
same time train all our people to such an appreciation of the 
value of efficient a^id well-trained teachers that we should no 
longer be willing to see them getting less than a living wage, 
and begging vainly for a just compensation. 

And so the story goes on. Many of the most important 
professions and occupations are not receiving any special train- 
ing at all. All should be. It is only lately that we have be- 



35 

jgiin to give any special training, even to journalists. As yet 
very few are receiving it; and one of the most important and, 
indeed, essential things to a proper curriculum in that subject 
seems to have been almost entirely forgotten and omitted. 

This system proposes to foster the training of every per- 
son in his specialty and to make the greatest practicable num- 
ber efficient therein. Would not that be a thing worth while? 
Are you going to help to do it? Of course, you are not if you 
are too lazy or too indifferent or too careless to give the sub- 
ject any thought. And especially are you not if you are one 
of those engaged in the business of patent medicine or quack- 
ery or shystery or in any other that is going to be killed by 
it. But even then it would be better for you — poor short- 
sighted, benighted being that you are! — if you could only see 
it. 

But I have heard it objected that such a system would 
foster an aristocracy. Yes, it would. But not an objection- 
able, hereditary, incompetent and immoral aristocracy. It 
would be an aristocracy of high morale, competency and ef- 
ficiency, chosen to their places, as should be all leaders, di- 
rectors, managers, teachers and trainers, for theii- especial fit- 
ness for their positions, and for no other reason. May God 
give us such an aristocracy, and teach us how to appreciate 
it! Like our country and our government, its members would 
be "of the people, for the people, by the people . " And its 
ranks would be open to every person who had the pluck, 
ability, industry and other desirable qualities necessary to at- 
tain it. The Aristocracy of Righteousness and Efficiency! 



CHAPTER III. 

SKETCH OF TRAINING AND EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS 
AS THEY ARE AND AS THEY SHOULD BE. 

A large caravan was making its way across a vast and 
sunbaked desert plain. Water was scarce, and for what there 
was they fought each other and killed, and some even drank 
the blood of the slain. But there were some among them 
who knew that, notwithstanding the desert condition of the 
surface, ground-water only a few feet down existed in great 
plenty — amply enough for all; and that by a few minutes of 
digging at camp every night each one could have all he need- 
ed. For all carried spades and shovels upon their wagons and 
pack-animals. Also, some knew that by varying the route a 
few miles to the right, the journey could be made along the 
foot-hills of the mountains where cool and delicious streams 
were continuously flowing. But the people of this caravan 
were hard-heads and refused to listen to those who knew, mak- 
ing excuses. They could not spare the hour it would take to 
dig, for they wanted to hurry on across. Most of them did 
not believe the water was there, anyhow, though they saw 
daily some who did dig and who found the water and' were so 
refreshed that they were able to push on all the faster. And 
as to the road to the right, they did not believe much in that 
either, and if it was there,, it was probably a hilly road and 
passed through forests and jungles full of unknown dangers. 
This, though they often caught glimpses of some who had tak- 
en that road and who seemed very happy in their journey 
along it. 

So, these hard-heads kept on in their desert way and even 
refused the wealth of water that lay under their very feet; 
and many of them perished miserably, while those who did 
survive engaged in such crimes and witnessed such scenes as 
made black and ineradicable spots in their whole after lives. 

What do you think of them? Fools, were they not? 

Just so are we humans who are neglectin,g to dig a little 
into the mental reservoirs which the Almighty has given to 
every one of us— neglecting to train the mentalities of each. 
And just so again are we humans who are refusing to turn 
to the right and travel the pleasantly-shaded, well- watered 
road along the foot-hills, neglecting to give ourselves and each 
other the moral training of which each and eveiy one is cap- 
able, and which makes so greatly for the highest human hap- 
piness . 



37 

A colony in a new land had settlel upon some bleak and 
barren hill-sides and had been digging out a bare living, some- 
times suffering even the pangs of starvation until many of 
them died therefrom, and many others^ were so hard-put to live 
at all that murder and robbery of even the few things they did 
possess had become a very common thing. And then came 
someone who had been exploring some caves in near-by hills 
and told of rich and inexhaustible deposits of guano to be had 
at comparatively small expenditure of labor, and which would 
make their barren hill-sides produce abundantly. And some of 
these held already used this fertiii;;er upon their lands and 
had glorious crops to show therefor. And also came others 
who had been exploring in valleys below and to the East, and 
told of rich, black and wholly unoccupied soil in great abund- 
ance for all, and that, too, otily a short journey away. And 
they, too, showed some of the products that they had been 
able to raise in the short time they w^ere there. They were 
wonderful, almost past belief. 

But these people on the hill-sides were tired and run 
down and discouraged, and few felt able to go and get the fer- 
tilizer and fewer still to journey to the fertile valleys ; nor would 
they let even their children go to visit these places and learn 
the truth about them, though some of the users of the fer- 
tilizer and some of the valleyites offered to take both parents 
and children freely to see and learn. Those people went on, 
for the most part, living their lean and low-standard life. 
And they were involved deeply in murders and robberies, many 
perishing" from want and needless disease while the sui'vivors 
among them had their lives deeply embittered almost beyond 
belief or endurance. 

What about these? 

Why, they are just like we humans will be if we continue 
to refuse to bring into all of our lives the' feitilizer of m.ental 
training and continue to make our poor little excuses for not 
going to abide in the fertile valleys of moral training. 

We oldsters, tired and worn-out and enei'vated as we are, 
cannot hope to make much progi"ess; still even we ought to do 
all we can. We shall find it will be enough to far" more than 
repay us, and we may train ourselves and each other enough, 
to give us a little clearer insight into what we can and should 
d^ for the children. If we do that, we shall have achieved 
a great victory. , 5 

A long time ago a large pai'ty of emigrants and explorers 
of both sexes and all ages found themselves shut in by winter 
in the frozen Noith Countiy. Fuel was scarce and many were 
actually freezing to death ; for the trees of that country were 
few and far-between and had only a stunted growth. Such 
wood as was to be had was often a subject of bitter conten- 
tion, frequently going to the point of robbery and sometimes 
even causing murders. And it was dark, too, as v/ell as cold. 



38 

These were not such bad people; but physical, moral and men- 
tal demoralization had shaken them to the core. 

Then came some of them and' showed to the others some 
jet-black rocks, and told a strange tale. They had, they said, 
built a little furnace or fire-place of these black rocks in order 
to set their pots thereon and conserve fuel and, behold, the 
furnace itself had been consumed and had produced great heat. 
Also, there was abundance of these rocks to be had only by 
^oing a little way and gathering them up below a seam of 
such rocks where they had lately fallen from the hill-side. 
These declared that they had gathered much of the rocks, and 
"were ready to show that they were deriving great comfort 
from their heat. 

About the same time came others and told of a strange 
spring, or seep that they had found in the hill-side over against 
the South i)ank of the river. One had accidently dropped a 
burning wick in a pocket at this spring and, instantly, it had 
flared up and given much light. They had found a channel 
in which there was quite a flow from the spring — enough for 
all. So, now it would be an easy matter for all to have plenty 
of light; and gloom would be dispelled from their camp. 

One would think there would have been great rejoicing and 
much haste to make use of these things. But most of them 
declared that it was absurd to think of such a thing as burn- 
ing stones and getting heat therefrom, especially black stones. 
Why, everybody knew that the only things that burned were 
whitish things like wood. And' as for finding an oil that would 
bum and give light, flowing out of the earth, any fool knew 
that could not be. The only oils that would so burn were 
good old whale-oil and bear-oil. Really, it was wicked to ti^i' 
to go against God and nature in ways like that. And so, 
most of them sat themselves down in cold and gloom and dark- 
ness, and many of them perished miserably although some were 
burning black rocks for heat and earth-oil for light in their 
very midst and were [.jetting along right well. But even these 
were greatly indurated and saddened by the sights and scenes 
they were compelled to witness about them. Some of them 
took of the strange new fuel they called "stone coals" and of 
the strange new illuminant they called "coal oil" to friends 
and othei- sufl'erers ; but the robbers who did not want the 
t2amp lighted up, caught these and killed them. 

Most of those who burned the "coals" and the "coal oil" 
rived through the winter as did some few of the others. But 
when the tale was told in after years "back in civilization," 
after the use of these things had become general, it could not 
be believed that any people could have been so foolish as to 
db as most of that band had done. 

Just so, a fev; years after we have established a real sys- 
tem of physical, mental and moral training for all of our 
young, it will be unbelievable that human beings, all endowed 



39 

with reason, would or could ever have tolerated such an in- 
efficiency and lack of system in the training of ourselves and 
each other, and' especially in the training of our young, as 
that under which we now drag along. 

And let us not forget that no good things can be had nor 
enjoyed very fully without the healthful conditions that come 
from ph3^sical tra-njng, also. So, though we have both the 
other two — mental and moral training — and do not have the 
physical, we shall still remain incompetents and inefficients. 

Let us see what some of our present conditions are, and 
try to get a little illuminating peep into what training condi- 
tions for this reason-endowed (but mostly unreasoning, be- 
cause as yet mostly untrained to reason) race we call human- 
ity, ought to be. 

1. IN INDUSTRY. i 

The newspapers said yesterday that in one week more all 
the Maintenance of Way and Shop Operatives on all the rail- 
roads in the United States (some three hundred thousand) are 
going on "strike," and thus tie up all transportation systems. 
At the beginning of the winter of 1919, a great coal "strike" 
practically paralyzed all of the industries of the entire coun- 
tiy, and if it had continued but little longer, the suffering 
and deaths from cold and hunger would have been beyond 
compute. Not long before that a great steel "strike," either 
directly or indirectly, put everyone in the whole country to 
great inconvenience and expense, and that, too, came near dis- 
rupting all industries and occupations throughout the land. 
Things like this, both local and general, are continually coming 
up and keeping us all hovering and shuddering more or less 
near to the brink of an abyss — making life a very night-mare. 
Why? Simply because we are not training and using the phy- 
sical and mental qualities and moral perceptions that the good 
God has given us. There is not one of these industrial ques- 
tions that is not capable of receiving a permanent, equitable 
and satisfactory solution, if we will all only put brains enough 
into it and temper our passions and greeds and prejudices with 
a big enough lump of the leaven of moral sense and' a reason- 
able appreciation of the other man's point of view. Then 
why do we not do these things, if they be so easy and would 
accomplish such enormously beneficial results? Simply because 
i we have not been trained while young, nor have we trained our- 
I selves since, to any considerable extent, to reason correctly, 
think logically, work and exercise systematically and weigh 
each question that arises ethically and equitably instead of 
only immediately-selfishly . 

I I am now proposing to you that we set in operation a sys- 

item of training for the youth of our land, including every one 



40 

of them, leaving out none, that will remedy these bad condi- 
tions as rapidly as possible. Then we shall be ready to pro- 
ceed to other and greater advancements. Even then the mil- 
lennium will not have come by a great deal. 

In a word, the reason why industrial conditions are in 
such a state of chaos throughout the world is because very 
few on either side of the contest have learned how to reason 
rationally or to decide things equitably in their own minds. 
These fundamental errors are not confined to any one class or 
creed. They exist in all, and are too nearly universal. They 
do vary in degree among difi'erent peoples and communities, 
and the proportions almost exactly parallel the training and 
the enlightenment (or lack of these) ^mo^g the different peo- 
ples. The only way to rectify this is to train the children 
while they are young. The wise man's saying is still tme, 
•Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he 
is old he will not depart from it." 

Let us look for a moment at conditions in our biggest in- 
dustry — agriculture. They are better than they were; but 
they are still very bad; and the "standard of living" among 
farmers is much too low. Whatever industry a man engages 
in, he should be well equipped, both mentally and materially, 
for his job. Very few farmers have had any special mental 
training for the most technical occupation in the world — their 
©wn. And how many really thoroughly equipped farms- 
equipped materially as the successful manufacturer equips his 
plant—have you ever seen? They are sadly few and far apart. 
And as to the personal comforts of the fai-mer and his family, 
what percentage of those you know live in a comfortably- 
heated house? What proportion of them have even the com- 
mon decencies of a bath-room and a sanitary toilet? And 
"what percentage of the farmers ow-n the farms they cultivate, 
and what percentage are renters? Statement has been made 
lately by a high autliority that in three great western states 
the renters number fully one-half. 

Even in many cases where the farmer has dono so well 
that he has been able to afford an automobile to be used, in 
part, for pleasure, and could iiave had others of the needed 
equipments for his farm and the comforts of life, he has been 
so long without these things that he does not even realize that 
he and his farai and family need them. 

Why aie these things so in regard to the fanner? Be- 
cause we have had such poor training and such little training 
in equity and ethics that we cannot even contemplate giving 
the fanner a square deal. And because the farmer has had 
so little technical training for his job, and so little margin 
above a bare living with which to equip his farm; and because 
he has lacked the mental training to enable him to know what 
equipment and comf 011:5 he really should have; and because he 



41 . 

has lacked the commiraication and transportation facilities and 
the moral training to enable him to stick to his fellows. 

Let us then put due emphasis in our system of training 
upon that to be given to all children about farming. And let 
us see that our fanner is trained fully and completely — not 
one-sid'edly . For, thanks to improved facilities in transporta- 
tion and communication, he is rapidly learning the power in 
combination and team-work with his fellows. And if we do 
not teach the rising generation of farmers the principles of 
ethics and equity along with the other things, may the Good 
Lord help us! For, without that training, when he comes into 
his real power, he will, doubtless, be fully as tyrannical to the 
rest of the world as the rest have been to him. Suppose our 
seven million farmers went on "strike." What do you think 
would become of us? And they may do it some day, if we 
do not train ourselves to treat them right, and train thenrj 
also to know the Right and do the Right. 

We might take up industry after industry, and we sh.ould 
invariably find that each one of them is far below what it 
should be in both efficiency and moral practices, almost entire- 
ly due to lack of proper early training of tiiose engaged in that 
industry. 

The remedy for all these things lies in our own hands. 
And it is simple; 0, so simple! Train the young. Are we a 
race endowed with reason? Then shall we take up this thing, 
or merely plod along through the desert? 

And no matter what you may think is the good and pro- 
per solution to our great industrial problems — whether it be a 
continuation of the old wage-system unchanged; or a system 
of profit-sharing; or a system of joint management; or of a 
combination of these last two; or whether it be state socialism, 
^ or some such modification thereof as that which Mr. EdNvard 
' Bellamy called Nationalism ; or whether it be Bolshevism, with 
all the power and direction (ostensibly) held by those who 
work with their hands and for themselves alone; or Syndical- 
ism, where each industry is a unit within itself and again all 
power and direction (again ostensibly) lies in the hands of the 
workers; or whether it be your opinion that plain Anarchy, 
where everybody does everything that he wants to do and 
nothing that he does not want to do, without let or hindrance 
and without regard to the desires, comforts or well-being of 
anyone else, is the correct solution — you may depend upon one 
thing as certain. Not one of these solutions (nor any other, 
for that matter) nor any combination of them has any chance 
whatever to succeed unless backed up by a thorough and ef- 
ficient physical and mental and moral training of all of the 
' workers of every class (both physical and mental) in all in- 
I dustries . 

' And let us not forget that training, in order to be thorough, 
and efficient must be begun early and given mostly in youth. 



42 

Come, let us no longer wander in the desert athirst, re- 
fusing to dig a little for the abundance ot water underneath 
our very feet, and refusing stolidly to journey a few miles to 
the right, and travel the pleasant, well-watered road along the 
foot-hills. Let us no longer scorn the fertilizer to be had by 
a little effort, that will make our almost barren fields to blos- 
som like the rose, or delay to move to the fertile and happy 
valleys awaiting us just a few hours' journey away. Let us 
no longer fail to use the means for comfort and light that the 
Maker has placed within reach of every one of us! 

Let us train, train, train aright! 

2. IN BUSINESS. 

All legitimate business is itself a branch of industry; and 
all that has been set down about that applies with equal force 
to this subject. But there are some special phases of busi- 
ness that deserve particular attention. 

The. physical condition of many of those who are engaged 
in business is deplorable. In general they do not take suf- 
ficient exercise and do not play enough or play beneficially. 
V\^hy? Because they do not have time enough? Not so much 
that; tor most, if not all, have time in plenty for sufficient 
exercise and a whole lot of play every day. It is mostly be- 
cau;^e ihey have not been trained to divide up their time sys- 
tematically and, more still, they have not been trained in youth 
to know how to exercise and how to play effectively. They 
do not know that the chief secret in physical well-being con- 
sists in workin,g hard when you work and playing hard when 
you play, and doing a liberal amount of both work and play. 

These are but a few of the desirable things that military 
training of the right kind will teach our children. Let us set 
about giving it to all of our boys, and its proper complementary 
system to all of our girls. When we do that the puny, weak- 
ly, debilitated, sickly-looking man and woman of business will 
no longer be conspicuous in our business world, nor anywhere 
else. 

What about the mental standards In the world of busi- 
ness? How big a proportion of those you know and do busi- 
ness with are mentally well-trained and efficient even in their 
own line? What makes the demand for real business efficiency 
so much greater than the supply? Lack of training. Noth- 
ing more and nothing less . Too many of our youth quit school 
at the end of the grades, or even before, to go into business 
to make money. They do not realize what they are missing 
and, in most cases, do not le'am to begin to realize it until it 
is too late. This should not be permitted. It is too much 
like giving the baby the candle-flame to play with because it 
wants it. 



43 

The belief that so many hold and proclaim that the col- 
lege training, and even the high-school course, is not really of 
much assistance in fitting one for business is not entirely with- 
out some foundation, as the college and high-school curricula 
are administered today. In many matters they are not practi- 
cal; and many things are omitted that should be included, or 
substituted for others not so necessary. But even as things 
are now the high school course and the college course, too, 
would really be of great benefit to most men engaged in busi- 
ness who have not had them. 

The remedy for these things? The system herein pro- 
posed will ultimately reach the point where practically every 
boy and girl will complete at least a high-school course, and 
with curricula in both high-school and college vastly more 
practical and beneficial than any we have today. Will it not 
be a time worth-while living in when the customer, the em- 
ployer, one's business associates and the general public all 
know that every man and woman engaged in business in any- 
capacity have received in youth a course of training certain 
to make them capable, honest and efficient? 

Sharp practices and cheating and "profiteering" and lying 
are the common order of the day in business everywhere I 
know about, except in Iceland. You know this is so. Your 
own experience has proved it to you, and at your cost many 
times. Indeed, so nearly universal are these things that some 
people (perhaps most people) think they are an unchangeable 
part of "human nature." That is not so, for there are some 
in every land who do not do business in that way; and we are 
told that in Iceland the whole population has so trained itself 
in these matters that none of them do. 

Business steadfastness, reliability and honesty are merely 
a matter of training. Let us remember this and forget that 
stinking old motto — that cover-all for sharp-practices, dishon- 
esty and cheating — "Business is business." 
I None of us, and probably none of our children, even to the 
! forty-second generation, will ever live long enough to see the 
evil practices entirely eliminated, just as no human laws have 
lever been able entirely to eliminate murders and other crimes. 
'But these have been reduced greatly; and so also shall the 
[business morals of our people be* raised to a high standard 
(when we take the matter up in their youth and train them all 
Ito it. It is a demonstrable fact that practically every boy 
;and girl can be so trained from birth on up to man-hood or 
Iwoman-hood that business honesty and integrity and square- 
idealing will be inherent in them — so deeply planted that they 
jcannot get away from them. The system herein proposed 
will not do this all at once. The other thing has gotten to© 
big a hold upon us; but it will be a lon<g step in that directioa 
and, if persisted' in faithfully, will ultimately lead us to the 
goal. 



44 

A splendid and successful young lawj-^er of my acquaint- 
ance said bantering-ly to his old military instructor in my pre- 
sence one day, "Captain, you have caused me to lose thousands 
of dollars with that 'square deal stuff' you used to pound into 
us. 

"People come here Into my office and tell me their tales, 
and in many cases I see plainly, either that they have no case 
and tell them so, or I perceive just as clearly that it is all 
due to misunderstanding- and that a satisfactory compromise 
could be arranged without going into court, and I set about 
arranging that. In either case I miss a fat fee. Are you 
sure that it was really good training for a lawyer?" 

"Yes," answered the Captain, "I am," and he went out 
with his head held high. 

Again let me ask, how would you like to know that all 
the people with whom you have business dealings were square 
and' honest and that you could depend upon what they said? 
It would lift a great load from your life, would it not? 

Then let us get busy and institute a system of training 
that will bring us as near to this delightful ideal as it is pos- 
sible for human beings, with their thousands of generations 
of doing mostly otherwise, to get. 

Come on, when we are hemmed in by winter and have 
available "stone-coal" for heat and "coal-oil" for light, let us 
make use of them and hope thereby to survive the bitter sea- 
son, and then to reach a place where we shall be able to de- 
velop nice, clean electricity from natural water-power, enough 
to supply us — all of us — with both waniith and light. 

Even that will not be the ultimate. There will be great 
things beyond. Such, perhaps, as the utilization of forces still 
now almost or quite undiscovered. And these steps that we 
are to take and are taking in training will lead to correspond- 
ing further steps and greater heights in the steadfastness, in- 
tegrity and moral advancement of the race. These things are 
capable of expansion beyond the power of the mind of Man 
to conceive at present. 

3. IN POLITICS. 

Politics, especially in a republic, ought to .be the cleanest, 
squarest and most ethical calling in the world. Instead, it 
has been so much the opposite that the very term has become 
a hissing and a by-word. To call a man a politician is to of- 
fer him a deep insult. Men who would scorn to lie about any- 
thing else, habitually make up the most a\vful lies and lying 
insinuations about their political opponents, and' spread them 
unblushing and un-ashamed. And we people are all so used 
to it that we do not think or care much about it. To say 
of a lie that was told or of a false and evil rumor that was" 
spread that the thing was done in a political contest seems to! 



45 

l^e sufficiently satisfying to the most of us — it is the thing" 
which is to be expected. 

But some will say, 'The political opponents are not lying 
about each other or, at least, not much; they are merely ex- 
pressing honest opinions." But when a man tells a thing for 
a positive fact which he does not in reality know to be a fact, 
that man's moral character is that of a liar. The same is true 
of newspapers. And when one man tells a thing for a fact, 
and another tells a thing so diametrically opposite that they 
cannot possibly both be true, then one or the other of these 
two men has lied. And this holds also for newspapers and' 
the press in general. 

These conditions are so frequent that in political contro- 
versies they are the rule rather than the exception. Neither 
are they confined to any particular creed or party. They all 
do it. That is what makes it so sad. 

The great harmful effect of dragging down the govern- 
ment's officials into the mire — causing the people to lose con- 
fidence and faith in their officials and in each other — seems 
scarcely to be appreciated. In many cases the direct result 
of this itself is a low moral standard among the nation's ser- 
vants. How can a man serve well a people, nearly half of 
whom have been calling him and thinking of him as a black- 
guard, a thief, a liar and a scoundrel? In many cases the of- 
fice-holder is one who is not strong enough to resist the temp- 
tations that beset him; for he says to himself, "They will think 
this or some other evil of me anyhow; so I might just as well 
'get mine while the getting is good.' " Many fall thus who 
othei-wise would not do so. 

One of the prime essentials of operating a republic is that 
the people have faith in the steadfastness, honesty and in- 
tegrity of their officials. And we are helping to undermine 
this Great Republic every day that we allow this direful state 
of affairs to continue in our politics, if there is any possible 
way to check and remedy it. This republic has survived thus 
far, not because of the mud-slinging proclivities of the politi- 
cians, but in spite thereof. It is said that controversy, op- 
position and resulting debates and discussions have been a prin- 
cipal means of giving to us the solution of most of the great 
political questions that we have so far solved. That is true; 
and it will continue to be true in even greater degree if we 
can only make our discussions and differences of opinion hon- 
est — if we can and only will learn to "play the game square." 
There may be something in every human that tends to make 
him take an unfair advantage of the other fellow but it can 
be trained out of him; for there is also something that makes 
him feel mighty good within himself whenever he has con- 
sciously succeeded in conquering this tendency — whenever he 
has brought himself to give the other fellow the "square deal." 

The contest in which lying and chicanery are principal 



46 

weapons on both sides does not and cannot give us as good a 
solution to any problem as would be had if they were not used. 

I repeat, we, you and I, are helping to undermine this 
Great Republic every day that we allow this direful state of 
affairs to continue in our politics if there is any possible way 
to check and remedy it. But there is such a way. Simply 
so train our youth that when they are gro"s\Ti-up they cannot 
make themselves get up on the political platform and lie about 
their opponents and slander them. The system of training 
which I am attempting to set before you now will do that if 
worked out properly, inaugerated promptly (before it is too 
late) and fostered and administered with care. 

We must train our people while they are still young, first 
to learn to gather up all the facts in a case, then to take all 
of them into consideration, giving to each its due weight, not 
only from his own point of view, but also from the standpoint 
of all others interested. 

As our people are now trained, or rather suffer from lack 
of training, too many can see only one side of a question. 

The habit of forming an opinion from prejudice or self- 
interest only, and without taking into account or digesting all 
the data is all to prevalent. 

With too many of us the mere statement, "I believe so- 
and-so", without any adequate reasons back of it, is the main- 
spring of our lives and actions. That attitude is beneath the 
dignity and unworthy of the mental and moral capacities and 
powers of reasoning beings. How shall Ave escape '^ Train 
our children out of it. 

What should one do when one has not had time or op- 
portunity to inv^estigj'.te all facts — for life is too shoit for any 
one man to foiTn an independent opinion about all, or even a 
great many? Answer: investigate all you can and, for the rest, 
take your cue from experts — honest and earnest investigators. 
This is manifestly impossible if many of the investigators them- 
selves are and are known or even believed to be neither honest 
nor sincere — if we have not faith in their mental or moral stead- 
fastness. How then shall we secure honest experts, and how 
have faith in their ability, honesty and steadfastness? Answ- 
er: train every one of them in these things from their youth 
up. The system herein proposed will do that. 

"No use to try it, you cannot change Human Nature". 
Some people will continue to do these evil things in spite of 
all you can do, and it cannot be helped." No, then there is 
equally no use to make laws against murder and thievery, nor 
to try to establish customs and conventions against immorality 
of any kind; for some people will continue to do these things. 
By the same process of reasoning, there is no use to build 
good roads, for some roads will always be bad. No use! 

One of the principal objections to granting the privileges 
of citizenship to women has been that "Politics" are so dirty 



47 

that it would lower women to get mixed up in them. And 
it will, too, if "Politics" remain what they are. Women are' 
in now and, if we men love the sanctity and purity of our 
women, we had better set about amending 'Tolitics". And' if 
our women value these things themselves, as we all know they 
do, it behooves them also to put the shoulder to the wheel and 
help shove the miring political cart out of the mud. 

If anyone knows of a better way to do this than to tram 
all of our young in morality, uprightness and integrity, let him 
or her set it forth. But whatever you do, do something about 
it. The question is one of the vital ones. 

Physical training, too, when given to all our youths, will 
be a much greater factor in clean and efficient politics than we 
can now realize. Not only does proper physical training give 
alertness and capacity to the mind, but it keeps the body fit, 
even late in life; and if the habit is early formed, it will con- 
tinue in most cases throughout life. Who has not seen and 
been disgusted at the sleek fatness and physical unfitness the 
bodies of so many of our politicians present? Certainly the 
fi,gure and appearance of most of them are not such as to in- 
spire confidence in their moral steadfastness or mental alert- 
ness . 

But a system is here proposed whereby every child shall 
receive throughout his youth as nearly as practicable the pro- 
per amount of the right kinds of physical exercise and train- 
ing. Are you for it or against it? Or do you want to see 
us just continue to dVag along, as we are doing, with some few 
receiving the proper physical training, and a few others re- 
ceiving too much and too hard training, to their great hurt; 
while the great majority have little or no attention paid to 
theirs, either at home or at school? No nation nor state nor 
community has ever given correct and proper physical train- 
ing to even nearly all of their children — not even the ancient 
Greeks. But we can do it if we will, and when we do, it will 
make of us a nation such as the world has never seen nor 
dreamed of before. In those days even politicians will not be 
nearly so devoid of lines of physical strength and beauty and 
grace, and of the mental and moral qualities that accompany 
these thinp:h. 

Life is going to be a mighty glorious thing for the peo- 
ple who will live' in those days. It is even glorious now in 
the hope and prospect that such things shall be. 

Come! Let's "carry on." 



48 

4. IN SCHOOLS. 

The free public school is the Foundation-Stone of the Great 
Republic of the United States of America . Whatever we are 
and whatever we have achieved have been due principally to 
the training our children have received in our public-schools. 
And whatever we shall do in the future — whatever right 
advances we shall make will depend upon the same — our grade 
schools, our high schools and our collegiate schools. Just in 
proportion as these are excellent, so shall we excel; and just in 
proportion as the character and efficiency of these are low, so 
shall we fall below what we ought to be and fail where we 
ought to succeed. 

I heard my mother telling one of my little nephews one 
day that if that boy of hers (meaning myself) had his way 
about it, he would give to every boy and girl in the United 
States a complete and thorough education — a West Point edu- 
cation. And that was and is true; and her putting the 
thought into word's has been a great incentive to me in this, 
my work. She has been gone now these many years; but 
wherever this plan of mine is set forth, I would wish this told 
in remembrance of her, and as an incentive to others to help 
the work along. 

Let us look a little into the number who are receiving 
training in our schools, and the number who ought to be; the 
kinds of training being given, and the kinds that ought to be; 
and the standard's of the training now given and what they 
ought to be. 

a. Number Receiving Training. 

The number of children of "school ag'e" (between six and 
twenty) in the United States in 1910 is given as about twenty- 
seven and a half millions. There are more now. Practically 
every one of these should be receiving training in the schools. 
Whenever one of them is not he is preparing for a life far 
below his capabilities and his just deserts in usefulness and 
happiness. And, worse still, he is preparing to become a bur- 
den of some sort (and likely a very sei'ious burden) upon his 
fellow-citizens. The child that is not receiving proper and ef- 
ficient training and education is the greatest menace to the 
republic. 

The exact number of these is not known, but they are 
legion. An idea can be fonned from the fact that the draft 
records show that, of approximately four million young men 
who entered the service, about one-fourth were so untaught 
as to necessitate their being classed as having less education 
than is customarily found in those who have completed the 
eighth grade. And a large percentage of these were found 
to be absolutely illiterate. 

The census of 1910 gives the number of illiterates over 



49 

ten yeai's old in the United States as 5,516,163 ; and the pro- 
portion has probably not lessened since, for we seem to have 
ofone backwards in many respects in the matter of our schools. 

The 1910 census also shows that there were 2,273,603 il- 
literate males of voting age. Is it not really a wonder that 
we are able to maintain the I'epublic, even for a single year?' 
I wish to emphasize the fact that this condition of affairs edu- 
cational is a menace to us and to our institutions — the great- 
est menace that confronts us today. 

How shall we meet it? Certainly we ought to do all we 
can to instruct and educate these illiterate ones. Night 
schools, special schools for foreigners and others should be 
instituted and carried on as well as can be done, of course. 
But at best this work will be able to reach only a comparative 
few of the uneducated grown-ups. Meanwhile illierate chil- 
dren are growing up as before and, unless we remedy that, 
the next generation will be confronted with this same problem, 
and the next, and so on. 

Now, it is perfectly practicable to institute a system that 
will train every young one, and give to each a good education. 
There is where our biggest duty lies; ana if we neglect it we 
are going to pay for it — we and our children. We are paying 
now for its having been so greatly neglected before. Shall 
we continue to shoulder the burden? 

One of the greatest factors in this gi'eat illiteracy is the 
non-attendance at school. And that is a condition that is 
absolutely curable . 

Few, indeed, are the children in the United States now 
who live in a region so remote and sparsely-populated that no 
grade or common school is within their reach, or cannot be 
brought within their reach. It would pay the nation and the 
state to put a school within reach of every child. An unedu- 
cated child growing up is a danger, and where they exist in 
large numbers they become a source of expense incalculable. 

The causes of non-attendance are numei'ous and very often 
of the most frivolous nature. Perhaps, one of the most fre- 
quent of these is that the child does not want to go to school. 
One of the reasons for that is that school-work is not made 
interesting enough. This should be changed by variation of 
the work, having pleasanter and better surroundings and equip- 
ment for all of our schools, interesting teachers, etc. Of these 
things, more later. But the child is not competent to decide 
whether it ought to go to school or not. It does not know 
■ — cannot know what is best for it nor what is best for the 
state. And if the parents do not know, it is the nation's and 
the state's business to teach them, and if necessary to induce 
or even to compel them to do the right thing. No parent 
has any inherent right to decide for the child upon a course 
that is seriously detrimental to the child itself and to the 



50 

country. As for letting- the child decide for himself or herself 
not to attend school, it would be just as sensible to allow 
babies to put their fingers into candle-flames, or to play with 
rattlesnakes if they want to. 

No, every child should go to school; and he should be 
caused to go to school by so training him and reasoning with 
him as to make him want to go to school. But where, for 
any reason, that does not result, he should still go to school. 
It is harmful to him and to all the rest of us to have him not 
go. And this applies not only to the "common" or "grade" 
schools but to the high schools as well. 

Not only shall we not be able to carry on the republic un- 
less we give to practically all our youth a good common-school 
education; but we shall probably fail also if we do not give 
to most of them, at least, a high-school course. And cer- 
tainly we shall fall far short of what we, as a nation, might 
and should do and become if we do not give at least that much 
training and "schooling" to practically all of them. 

In most cases where a child has been carried through 
a really interesting and instructive course in the grades (un- 
fortunately we have very few such courses now) he is ex- 
tremely desirous of continuing his work by attending high- 
school . And by a proper course* of encouragement and train- 
ing, nearly every child could be made to desire this. But 
whether or not he wishes to complete the high-school course, 
he should be required to do so. He is not the one to decide. 
Neither is the parent unless he decides aright. If he does 
not, then the state should step in for its o\mi benefit and pre- 
servation and for the welfare of the child. 

After a few generations of a really efficient school and 
training system, no parent would think of being so base as 
to try to decide that his child should have only a poor educa- 
tion. 

But how can children attend high-school when none is in 
reach of them? And that is the condition in the case of just 
about one-half of our children. A little more than half of 
them live in the country, and nearly all of these have no high- 
schools available. 

We have already begun to remedy this by the estabhsh- 
ment of rural high-schools, and some considerable progress 
is being made, but not nearly fast enough, nor quite in the 
right way in most cases. * As it is being done now, the re- 
sult is mostly a "patchwork" — a school set up here and there 
in haphazard fashion. This is not the best way. The state 



* On the very day that this was written I saw in a 
local agricultural paper a description of what pui-ported to be 
the very first real "farm-school" in the United States. 



51 

or, at least, the county should be scientifically divided up intO' 
high-school districts, leaving out nobody. Then, as rapidly 
as practicable the schools should be built — probably those hav- 
ing the greatest number of pupils first; but none should be 
long delayed. It should not be long before every child in this 
broad land has a high-school available to him, and he should 
attend it if he is a normal human being and should complete 
the course in it, and the course ' should be worth completing. 
If he is not normal or is subnoiinal, he should have a special 
school suitable to his needs provided, and, generally, should be 
required to attend it until twenty or until he has gotten all 
he can get out of it. 

Expensive? Sure, all this will be expensive — wonderfully 
expensive! But no community nor state nor nation ever made 
itself poorer by the expenditure of money for increasing the 
efficiency of its educational system. And, whatever it costs, 
it will not be nearly so expensive to have it as it will be not 
to have it. ''Come now, let us reason together" and prove 
that we deserve the appellation of reasoning beings. The 
reader will please note later on that this proposed system does 
not compel states — merely offers great inducements (so great 
that it is not believed that they would or could be for long 
rejected) . If they are, the inducements should be increased, 
both by the States and by the National Government. Nor 
does it propose much compulsion of any kind for grown-up 
individuals, except in the ever-lessening, number of c:ises (as 
the operation of the system continues) where, throujih either 
ignorance or cupidity, the individual is continuing to 'do a 
thing harmful alike to the child and to the country. 

A child that has been given thorough, diversified and in- 
teresting courses in the grade and high schools will be very 
likely to wish to continue his training by taking a college 
course. Under this proposed system, it is believed that a 
great many more would do so than do now. It is also be- 
lieved that this would be a fine thing for the individuals and 
for the country, especially with the vastly improved and more 
practical curricula that would come into the colleges and uni- 
versities under this system. 

I repeat, the high-school graduate will probably wish to 
take a college course. He or she will now be practically 
grown and ought to be fully capable of deciding that for himself 
(or herself). But each one of us should be encouraged to give 
himself all the training possible; for the right kind of a col- 
lege education will be a big help to anyone, no matter what 
calling or vocation he proposes to pursue. 

And' however great the number who desire to take a 
college or university course, they should all be provided for. 
It should be available to all who do satisfactory work and who 
desire it. That would increase the individual capacities of our 



52 

people for happiness more than we can well imagine. Also, it 
would even do away with the false and foolish idea, that so 
manv seem to hold, that it is beneath the dignity of a college- 
bred gentleman to work with his hands. I thank God that I 
live in a country where I can go out and plow corn or prune 
my apple-trees or go into my carpenter-shop and work at that 
pleasant trade and still not "lose caste". But I hope to live 
to see the day when, in our land, at least, it shall be literally 
true — what Rebecca Hoover used to say in the old school dia- 
logue — ''Any employment that is honest is honorable." That 
condition of democracy looks like the "Promised Land" to me; 
and I believe that this system which I am proposing and ad- 
vocating would do more to bring it about than anything else 
in the world. 

Another principal cause of non-attendance of children at 
school is that the child is kept from school to work — either at 
home or in the store or factory. In any such case, it is a 
crime — a crime against the child, and a crime against society, 
against the state, and against the United States. It has been 
partially recognized as such by several states, but not fully 
enough by any. A child should be taught to work. Yes, 
every child should, both at home and at school. That should 
^^e part of his (or her) training; and it may easily be made 
a part of his (or her) recreation if the matter is handled 
right. But the causing of any child to work, with gain as 
the primary object and benefit to the parents as the sole, or 
even the principal intention, is wrong and should not be per- 
mitted — especially not if it takes the child away from the 
grade or the high school. A parent has no claim on the child 
ahead of the child's own claim and the state's claim on such 
an amount of that child's time as is necessary for his very 
best possible education and training. If the parent is out of 
work, the state can well afford to look him up a job. If he 
is disabled the state can well afford to look out for him, and 
do so in a way not degrading. But the state cannot affoi^ 
to let anybody have any child's school-time. Neither does any 
child owe his school time to his parent. To take it is rob- 
bery. That parent got paid for raising that child when his 
parents raised him. And if it so happened that the parent's 
parents robbed him, that gives him no right to rob his own 
child in his turn. This proposed system will go far to check 
it. And yet, at the same time it will also help estabUsh and 
maintain proper parental discipline and training in work and 
all other matters. • j 

We, as a people, are greatly lacking in parental discipline. 
While many children work when they should be in school, 
many others are allowed to grow up without being taught or 
trained to do any useful work. It would no longer be so un-^ 



53 

der this proposed system of training. In the olden days par- 
ents exercised the power of life and death over their children. 
It is still done in certain places in the Orient. 

It is no long-er done in civilization. But 0, My! how some 
of those old patriarchs did rave when it was l^rst proposed to 
take the privilege away from them. And how some of the 
sheiks would howl today were they to be told that they could 
no longer slay their own children or their own wives if they 
wanted to. 

Just so will you hear some of the uncivilized barbarians 
living among us rave over the proposal that they shall no long- 
er be permitted to rob their children of their school-time. 

b. Faulty Curricula. 

One of the principal reasons why children dislike to go 
to school, and do poorly in school is the faulty curricula. And 
this is not confined to schools of any class ; it is true of the 
common schools, the colleges and the Universities. Much im- 
provement in this matter has been made of late; but not near- 
ly half that is needed has been done. In the common or grade 
schools, especially, the work does not offer diversity enough 
to be interesting. It is mostly a "grind"; and it does not 
need to be so at all. Recreation and play do not receive pro- 
per encouragement and supervision. Athletics and physical 
training have too little place and are not properly supervised 
nor well nor equitably apportioned to all pupils. The military 
training features of this proposed system will correct all this. 
And if there were no other reason for giving military training 
to all of our boys and its corresponding complement to all of 
our girls, this matter of physical development and the care and 
training of the body would be reason enough, and worth far 
more than the system would cost. Would it not be worth 
while to see the slouchy walk and carriage, the stooping-should- 
ers, the hollow-chest and the prevailing health-manacing un- 
cleanliness and carelessness in regard to personal appearance 
give way to the springy step, erect bearing, square-shoulders, 
full chest, clean and splendid appearance and full health that 
comes from military training? 

I have visited many schools lately, and it is positively 
sickening to see how the children "slouch" and acquire bent 
spines while sitting or standing, walk shufflingly and with the 
head hung and shoulders stooped, suck leadpencils, carry dirty 
hands and fingernails, and do many other unsanitary things, 
apparently uncorrected and not taught better. 

Personal hygiene, the care of the health and the teeth and 
many physical and patholqgical dangers that lie in wait for 
youth are subjects almost entirely neglected. Some of this 
instruction is probably distinctly the province and the duty of 



54 

the home. But parents cannot give it unless they themselves- 
know the subject and recognize the necessity and duty of im- 
parting it to their children. The faults of our present cur- 
ricula are too numerous to mention, and they would not and 
could not be corrected all at once. In fact, there will always 
be room for continuous and never-ending improvement. But 
the system herein proposed will set our feet on the right road 
and give us an impetus in the right direction. And the best 
thing about it is that the instruction and training will be given 
to all of our children. 

The curricula of the high schools are little better, either 
in promoting interest or giving instruction in subjects that are 
now either omitted or are given a great deal less time and at- 
tention than they deserve. Some of these neglected subjects 
are so important that, if it were necessary to do so (which 
it is not) it would be better to eliminate Geography and Alge- 
bra or almost any other study rather than to omit or skimp 
them. "Mental Arithmetic" is one such. 

It is in the high school that the military training would 
first begin to manifest its greatest and most important re- 
sults. Military discipline would really begin to show its bene- 
ficial effects here. And our children in the United States of 
America need it. I know that the very word is anathema to 
our people. But if their children received instruction in mili- 
tary discipline of the right kind — the West Point and Anna- 
polis kind — the American, not the Prussian kind, nor the al- 
most only kind known to the newly-hatched and nearly untrain- 
ed officers from civilian life, as manifested so often during 
the Great War — for a few years, they would fall in love with 
it. It would be somewhat irksome to some of the older boys 
and girls who could remember the "good old days" when chil- 
dren habitually went their own way, untrained and uninstruct- 
ed in many of the matters most essential to a high standard 
of life and health, a proper respect for their elders and for law 
and order; but the transition period would soon pass. After 
a while people would even cease to talk about those "good old 
days," and a proposal to return to them would be considered 
as idiotic as a proposal to return to the use of alcohol as a 
beverage or the taking away of political rights, privileges and 
duties from women. 

As previously stated, the basic principles of agriculture 
and the practical application thereof should be taught in the 
grade school and the high school to practically all pupils. 
Also, for all boys, there should be manual training and mecha- 
nic arts, and for all girls domestic science and home economics. 
No school curriculum should be considered as even approaching 
completeness without these things; and all the children should 
receive instruction in them. 

This proposed system puts Agriculture and its concomit- 
ants — Manual Training and Domestic Science — in their proper 



55 

position in the training of youth for the first time in the his- 
tory of the world. 

The curricula in our colleges and universities also still 
need many revisions and additions. The imparting of labora- 
tory instniction and especially of practical instruction has made 
great advances, but even yet the work in these things is , in 
many cases, still in its infancy. And as the curricula are im- 
proved, you may be sure that the interest of the pupils and 
the pleasure in their work will increase. There will naturally 
result a corresponding increase in the number who desire to 
attend these institutions of higher training. 

But how shall we get the time for this big increase in the 
curricula? In the first place the diversification of the work 
will in itself add an enonnous stimulus. The little children 
and even the older ones who are now so bored by the incess- 
ant hours of continuous poring over books will find the dull 
monotony so pleasantly broken by the short but frequent per- 
iods of physical exercise, by interesting work in the school- 
garden or school-field, by laboratory instruction, and by 
real play that they will be able to do as much and more- text- 
book work in far less time than before. They will soon learn 
to "work hard when they work and play hard when they play"; 
and they will like it. 

And with this diversity of work and of training, the long 
and idle vacation will not be necessary any more (if it ever 
was) to either pupil or teacher. The Saturday holiday each 
week for the grades, and a half holiday on that day for high 
schools and higher institutions, together with one fortnight's 
and one week's vacation and some seven other days during the 
year will be amply sufficient. 

Teachers who use the time to advance themselves in their 
profession should, of course, be given "leave of absence," with 
pay, for that puipose; but it never has been fair to them to 
turn them loose for a lon,g vacation without pay each year. 
That is one of the ways not to get the best teachers and not 
to hold the most competent ones in the profession. 

To the work of the pupils the long vacation is most de- 
moralizing. It begets laziness, loss of interest and, in many 
cases, an almost ovemiastering desire to quit going to school 
at all. Monotonous, deadly-grinding and often uninteresting 
as school work has been, it has doubtless been necessary for 
both teacher and pupil to have vacations longer than those 
recommended above; but they have never needed to be as long 
as they have usually been. Nor is it thought that it will be 
advisable, once this system is well in operation, to have more 
than that recommended. Some colleges and universities have 
already practically adopted this plan of reduced vacations. 



56 

For those which have not, and for the high schools and grade 
schools, this would add one-foiirth to one-third to the available 
time for the year's work in each school year. 

If, even with the diversified interests and elimination of 
monotony brought about by the amending and enlarging of 
the curricula, it were to be found that little children in the 
lower grades needed more time out of school, that should be 
easily arranged and adjusted. 

We used to have the eight month's school, the six month's 
school, and even in many cases no school at all. Sometimes 
it is so yet in some places. And we are paying for these 
things in the illiteracy and inefficiency of several millions of 
our present population. Let us not allow that condition to 
continue. It is extremely dangerous. 

It is a fact that education and training is almost invari- 
ably of great benefit to any child who receives it, faulty and 
inadequate as our curricula are. But it is also true that the 
faulty and inadequate curricula often lend a color of truth to 
the statements which opponents of education are so fond of 
making, to the eff'ect that education, beyond a certain (very 
low) point, does not do one any practical good, and often- 
times tends to render a person impractical and worthless. 
Real examples of this are much fe^ver and farther between 
than is g-enerally supposed ; for whenever or wherever a col- 
lege graduate or even a high school graduate fails to make 
good it is heralded abroad (even as is an occasional but rare 
failure on the part of a preacher's son) and the whole world 
is made to know about it. Those who are misers or who for 
any other reason hate to see money spent for the education 
and training of our youth delight in that sort of thing. Yes, 
and even some of us do it merely because we have not been 
trained to have respect enough for truth and because we like 
sensationalism . 

An adequate and complete curriculum will go far towards 
making examples of "educated" failures less numerous. 

When we go about studying the subject thoroughly and 
scientifically, we shall find many respects in which our college 
curricula need amendment. 

One that I would call attention to particularly is that, in 
Schools of Journalism, more attention should be paid to the 
teaching of our -Journalists, Editors and other Newspapermen 
to stick to the truth in their publications. 

The "freedom of the press" is one of the highest bless- 
ings that this republic has, and one of the greatest guaranties 
of our liberties. But along with it goes an obligation ot stick 
to the truth — not even to insinuate falsely nor to distort things 



57 

in favor of anyone's point of view. Not many Journalists 
seem to realize that yet. The cun*iculum of the school of 
Journalism should teach it to them and emphasize it. 

The military training features of this proposed system 
would teach it to them; for exactness and truthfulness lie at 
the moral foundation of all right militaiy training. 

c. Inadequate Equipment and Incompetent Teachers. 

In some forty of our states and in several foreign coun- 
tries I have observed schools. We have many excellent ones, 
and nearly all the communities seem to be supplied with free 
schools of one kind or another. In general, our school sys- 
tems seem to be better than those of any foreign countiy 
which I have visited. 

In approaching many of our towns, the first building that 
comes in sight and the most impressive one in the town is 
the public school building. And the interest shown in the 
education of our children is great everywhere. I do not think 
that there is anything equal to it in any foreign country that 
I have seen. Probably there is not anywhere else in the 
world. It is mainly this interest which has made it possible 
for the United States of America and her institutions to live 
and become the highest example in existence of what a gov- 
ernment of the people, for the people, by the people, can do. 

This produces a tendency to make us too willing to rest 
upon our oars and not to try hard enough to push advance- 
ment further, "If we already have the best in the world 
why seek to improve upon it"? We are too likely to ask. Be- 
cause, even so, we are far below the standard that we should 
be setting; because if we do not go on advancing we shall 
presently begin to retrograde; and because, if we do not im- 
prove our school system rapidly and thus keep pace with the 
other things, we shall soon find it lagging too far behind . It 
is so already in many respects and in many communities. 
Our advancement in manufacture, in transportation, and in 
many other things has been wonderful, and is still going on. 
But our advancement in agriculture, in country home-making, 
and in many other things whose advancement mainly depends 
upon the efficiency of our schools, and in the schools them- 
selves, especially in the country schools, is not keeping up. 

We have many schools in fine buildings and with splendid 
equipments; but we have not nearly enough such, and those 
that we have are usually not of sufficient capacity to accomo- 
date nearly all the pupils. In some cases, even in our largest 
and richest cities, the schools have had to be run in two 
shifts — momin,g and afternoon. That is not a good way. 

And in the smaller towns, and especially in the country, 



58 

the buildings and equipments are wofully inadequate. In 
nearly all of our schools, both city and country, equipments 
for the instruction in the important subject of Agriculture and 
ground adjacent to the school for the practical illustration 
thereof are almost totally nonexistent. 

In nearly all of our schools there are not adequate grounds 
and equipments for the play and the physical training of the 
pupils. 

A few of our city and a very few of our town schools 
have arrangements for instruction in manual training and do- 
mestic science, but these are totally absent from most of our 
schools. They should be available to all pupils in all schools. 

Equipments and arrangements for basic instruction in sev- 
eral other vocations are either toi'ally lacking or extremely in- 
adequate in many schools where such subjects should be 
taught . 

While we have many splendid school buildings, especially 
in our large cities, the architecture and appearance of most 
are such as to breed contempt rather than to cause our boys 
and g'irls to look to them for inspiration, as they should be 
able to do. Some few schools are provided with beautiful and 
inspiring arrangements of school grounds, with flowers, lawns, 
etc. But the idea that most of us have when we think of 
"the old school play ground" and the grounds about the school 
is an ugly and uncomfortable building set in a small plot, neg- 
lected and weedy, and anything but beautiful or inspiring in 
appearance. This ought not to be so in a single instance in 
the United States. If one owns a fine jewel, does he give it 
a setting of dirty, brown clay? Jewels cannot even appreciate 
their surroundings. Children can and do. Our children are 
the most valuable possessions that we have, both to us in- 
dividually and to the state and the nation; and yet we mostly 
compel them to spend a great part of their waking hours 
cramped in amid surroundings of mud and weeds and ugliness. 
What do you think of the relative respect and gratitude to the 
government of a child whose government has provided for him 
an education in a splendid and comfortable building, well and 
adequately equipped, surrounded by beautiful grounds, with a 
proper place for play and physical training, and a child whose 
training has been grudgingly and stingily furnished in a place 
like nearly any school house you can think of, with the equip- 
ment and surroundings just such as most of them now have? 

But you say, "This is asking too much; not all nor nearly 
all these things can be afforded." I repeat that no community 
ever got poorer by spending its money and substance for the 
improvement of its schools. These thi^gs can be done and 
are going to be done; for men and women who see the thing. 



59 

in its right light are going to keep hammering away until it 
is done, for the sake of the children of our country. It will 
be expensive to attach a little fairn and a big play gi'ound to 
every school in our cities and towns; but we should do it and 
we will do it. I wonder what town or city will have the 
honor of doing it first? 

As conditions are at present, the eighth grade is the high- 
est available to nearly every country boy and girl in the land, 
unless they be sent away from home at the very age when 
they most need parental care and supervision. We have a 
few country high schools but are not building them nearly fast 
enough. There should be one available to every child. The 
system herein proposed would soon make it so. Then would 
be bridged the almost impassable four-year chasm, that now 
lies between the country-bred child and the university or col- 
lege. Would not that be worth while, whatever the cost? I 
warn you that we must do these things for the farmer, and 
train him to do them for himself, or we are going very soon 
to be mighty short of fanners. Then the United States of 
America will begin to "go hungry." 

I can think of no other "back to the farm" movement that 
would begin to compare in results achieved with this proposed 
system of teaching Agriculture, both practical and theoretical 
to all of the pupils in all of our schools. Innumerable children 
would learn to love it when they saw what a beautiful thing 
could be made of it; and grown-ups would flock to it when it 
no longer forced a terrible handicap upon their children. 

Our school system is suffering from a great shortage of 
teachers, in every state in the Union. We have long been suf- 
fering from a shortage of eflicient and competent teachers; 
but lately the conditions have become so acute as to be alaim- 
mg. The only teachers that many schools can get are young 
girls of "seventeen and up" who have hardly more than com- 
pleted the eighth grade. Some of them have not even done 
that. And many other schools are facing the alanning situa- 
tion of not being able to procure teachers at all . Why ? Be- 
cause we are not paying our teachers enough and have not 
been for a long time. We have the reputation of being a 
very generous people; but in this respect, as well as in some 
others, Vvc are positively stingy. The pay that our teachers 
receive, in all our schools, has not been such for a long time 
as, in itself, to attract anything like the best material to the 
profession. Fortunately the training of the young has such 
high attractions of its own that many of splendid ability have 
taken up and continued the work. But enthusiasm will not 
buy bread, and conditions have at last reached a point where 
many of the best have been forced to quit, and not much of 



60 

even fairly g-ood material is coming in. We are going to pay 
for all of this in the ignorance and inefficiency of the genera- 
tion that is growing up. Is this a time to trifle and play 
with these things that lead to I.W.W.-ism, bolshevism and 
anarchy? That is what we are doing. Beware! The fruit 
is very poisonous. 

The system herein proposed will be a first long step tow- 
ard remedying these things. It provides means and methods 
of giving to all our schools adequate buildings and equipments, 
and of providing teachers and trainers with reasonable pay. 
It will impart to every child "Physical Development, Discipline, 
Inculcation or Patriotism, Americanization, Democratization, and 
Vocational Training." These will be big advantages to the in- 
dividual and of incalculable value to the republic. 

The physical unfitness of our people has been brought very 
forcibly to our attention by the draft. Details of this have 
been given elsewhere. This proposed system would provide 
ample equipment and measures for play, physical exercise and 
development; and would also ,give, what is equally essential, a 
careful and efficient supei^vision of the health and hygiene of 
all pupils by competent and authoritative physicians, dentists 
and specialists. We are doing more of these thing's now than 
we used to do, but not nearly enough, probably not one-tenth 
enough. Witness the examinations of the health conditions of 
school children lately made and the subnoiTnal and abnonnal 
conditions found to exist in every group examined. 

d. Low Standards and Why. 

Many parents who are financially able to do so send their 
children to private schools and colleges. There can be but one 
legitimate reason for this. It is because the public schools do 
not offer a high enough standard of instniction . Of course, 
some of the rich do so from mere snobbeiy; but that is un- 
democratic. It is one thing that we may correctly denominate 
as "un-American," and we should bring our public schools up 
to such a high standard as no longer to leave an excuse for 
it. Its continuation and the consequent lowering of interest 
in the public schools on the part of the wealthy people is one 
of the greatest factors imaginable in undemocratization of our 
people. No other thing will or can do so much to raise class 
barriers and maintain divergencies of interests between var- 
ious portions of our people as this, unless we can find a way 
to check it. Nor can we hope to do that unless we destroy 
the excuse for the existence of such a condition. This can 
be done only by raising the standards of our schools as high 
as any that the rich man's money can buy, 

Otlier parents do not wish to send their children to col- 
leg'e or even to high school because they believe or claim to 



61 

believe that the things the children would learn there would' 
be of little or no "practical" value to them. We know tliat, 
even with what our schools now are, these parents are mis- 
taken; but they are a great deal nearer right than ought to 
be. This again from the fact that the standards of work 
done in our schools, both as to kind and quantity, is in many 
cases far too low. Principal causes are inadequate equipment, 
incompetent teachers and schools not being operated through- 
out the year, as previously discussed. 

Put this proposed system into operation, and this kind of 
parent will no longei- have this vain excuse for enabling him 
to save a few more dollars and pile them up for his heirs to 
wrangle over, and for putting his child to work merely for 
the parent's own benefit, thus robbing his own offspring of 
their school right. 

Still other parents say and believe that they "do not see 
why their children should have so much education," that they 
themselves did not have it, and they have gotten along pretty 
well, and so on. The number of those who openly say this 
or secretly think it is much greater than we imagine. In 
most such cases it is a species of ignoble jealousy. They do 
not wish their children to have a better life nor a higher stan- 
dard of living than they themselves have had. These par- 
ents, as well as those just mentioned above, are sadly in need 
of some teaching and training themselves in the duties and 
obligations of parenthood. 

Schools cannot do much teaching to grown-up men and 
women of their ages. That is more in the province of our 
preachers; and if we would do better by these, along with our 
school teachers, we should see a corresponding increase in the 
efficiency of their work. The system herein proposed would 
teach us to do justice by all our servants; and it would also 
raise up a generation of parents who would not view things 
with the mental and moral strabismus which now afflicts par- 
ents like those mentioned above. 

The standard of discipline in our schools, and even in 
nearly all of our homes, is much too low. Our people have 
been too busy making money and developing the resources of 
this great countiy to pay much attention to it. The lack of 
discipline in the home has been reflected instead of corrected 
in the schools . So that our people grow up without it ; and 
the resultant disregard for law and order, and for properly 
constituted authority has brought upon us all sorts of trouble. 
Lack of respect for parents and for the aged is too often a 
manifest result. Too many of us seem to believe that a man- 
ifestation of boorishness, in contradistinction to good manners, 
is a mark of democracy. Lack of discipline is at the root of 



62 

nearly all law breaking. Mobs and lynchings are its elder 
children . 

We have wandered so far away from discipline that it 
seems that very few of us even know the meaning of the word. 
Most seem to hate and fear it, as people usually do that 
which they do not understand. Some because they think it 
means blind obedience to an irresponsible and unreasoning 
authority. It does not. Others because they think its prin- 
cipal idea is punishment. That is not so. Still more hate 
discipline because they cannot or will not understand that their 
rights and privileges are limited by the fundamentally equal 
rights and privileges of those among whom they live. 

I have previously defined discipline as that quality posses- 
sed by efficient human beino-s which causes each to appreciate 
and accept without question the duties, powers and limitations 
of his position (but without precluding the use of legitimate 
means to better that position) which inspires each with con- 
fidence in the efficiency and moral steadfastness of his associ- 
ates and comrades ; and which makes instant and heart-whole 
compliance with the laws, rules, regulations and directions of 
properly constituted authority a second nature (but not pre- 
cluding proper efforts by lawful means to prevent abuse of 
power or to make proper and la\\'ful efforts to secure changes 
in laws, rules, regulations and directions that are believed to 
be wrong or unlawful) . The obligations of the administrator 
to administer efficienctly and lawfully are fully as great as 
are those for whom he administers to comply and obey. 

This is the civilian counteipart of the kind of Military 
Discipline which this system proposes to introduce into our 
schools. In a single generation its reflex would be powerful- 
ly felt for good in our homes and throughout the public and 
private lives of our people. It would take a whole volume' to 
tell all the good it would do for us; and twenty-five years af- 
ter the adoption of this system, it would be no more possible 
to secure a return to the old than it wo'ld now be to get our 
country to return to the system of slavery or our faiTners 
to go back to the use of the reap-hook and "cradle." 

The standards of mental training in our schools are too 
low. This proposed system would remedy that. 

The standard of morale among our people is far too low. 
This proposed system would raise it. 

The standard of physical fitness among our people is much 
lower than it should be. This proposed system would make 
our people almost universally wonderfully fit. 

The standard of discipline among our people is so low as 
to be in many respects and places almost non-existent. This 
proposed system would give us a race of efficient men and 
women — the first and absolute prerequisite for discipline. It 



63 

would give us a race that would be giad to do their duties^, 
know their powers and recognize the limitations imposed upon 
them by the fact that others besides themselves have rights 
and privileges which must be respected. It would cause our 
people to be inspired with confidence in the efficiency and moral 
steadfastness of each other. And it would make obedience 
and respect to law and good order "second nature" to the great 
mass of our people. 

Let's adopt this system. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MILITARY, NAVAL AND NATIONAL DEFENSE 
FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM. 

This coimtiy called the United States of America has 
shown the world how to do many good things. If we so will 
it, we are now on the verge of giving it another lesson — how 
to be militarily efficient without becoming a victim of "Militar- 
ism." The door is open to us. Let us step inside. 

Men, patriots and statesmen have perceived for a long 
time our perilous position and imminent danger because of our 
"unpreparedness" and weakness from a military point of view. 

Here we were and are a great big, rich nation, lately be- 
come easily accessible by reason of improvements in naviga- 
tion and other transportation facilities, and with no ready 
system of defense — nothing that could be gotten in shape that 
could be thought adequate or effective under a period of at 
least twelve to eighteen months. Meanwhile vast "militar- 
istic" peoples, who looked and still look with envy and greed 
upon our wealth were, and are, just across both oceans from 
us; and there were, and are, others nearer home who would 
gladly help to loot us and make of our treasures their spoil. 
They got ready to do it and some tried it ; and, but for a 
fortuitous combination of circumstances, they would have suc- 
ceeded. They did come mighty near succeeding before we 
could train and organize our vast potential forces and put 
them in motion . 

Here we were and are the expositors and advocates of a 
system of democracy — a system diametrically opposed to the 
monarchial systems of the most of the rest of the world. 
And our system made headway even among the peoples of the 
monarchies themselves. How those monarchies hated us, and 
still do! That was another reason for their trying to crush 
us. They have long planned and intended to do it and they 
still do. They will succeed yet if we do not prepare to de- 
fend ourselves and make ourselves so strong that they will 
not dare to attack us, even at the times most favorable to 
them. Potential stren^h we have of the greatest, but that, 
without training and organization and constant preparedness, 
will not count for much. It takes too long to get ready. If 



65 

we depend upon potential strength alone, we shall some day 
be whipped and made a spoil and our kind of government des- 
troyed before we hardly know it. The ways of these enemies 
are devious and numerous, and many of their machinations 
are being used even now light here among us. I think I 
know of three nations that are jointly and consciously getting 
ready to try to whip us; and two of these each has "under its 
thumb" a larger nation from which it is preparing to draw 
fighting men and supplies without limit. Also, some of our 
most powerful late allies are, for one reason or another, more 
or less estranged from us. It does not seem probable that 
next time we shall have powerful buffers between us and oui 
enemies, holding the Ime until we can get time to pass from 
lethargic unpreparedness to a condition of even pai'tial effi- 
ciency . 

Now, our people and statesmen and patriots have not all 
been blind to these conditions, and are not. But the right- 
eous and powerful fear of "Militarism," of settin,g up a Frank- 
enstein that would slay us from within, has been sufficient de- 
terrent to prevent us from taking the only course to military 
strength that seemed open. If the system of military con- 
scription, and its necessary concomitant, a- big standmg aiTny, 
and the resultant placing of the military man ahead of the 
civilian, in short, if the Pmssian system were adopted, would 
it not disintegrate our democracy and Prussianize our country? 
I have pever heard of any reason, .^lor can I think of any rea- 
son why it would not. In the course of time such a system 
would turn the United States or any other country into a 
monarchy, with a titled military caste behind it and support- 
ing it. It is a wholesome knowledge of this fact that has 
been a factor powerful enough to prevent our country from 
adoptin,g that system ; and that will continue to prevent its 
adoption, pray God! 

We have come near to adopting it lately; for most of our 
people have been brought to a realization of the fact that, so 
long as there- are wild-beast nations in this world, we must 
become, not only potentially strong, but actually and presently 
strong, in order to be able to defend ourselves and our in- 
stitutions . 

And to many there has seemed to be no other way out 

than to create a big standing army and put our young men 

all into it for a period of training, say, about the age of 19, 

20 or 21. Many have deluded themselves with the belief that 

this period would be only for a few months. It would not. 

It would have soon expanded to two years or to, 

' at least, one year. It takes that length of time to train a 

j green man to be anything like an efficient soldier in all but 

i exceptional cases. And the principal reason that could be 

' advanced for doing this thing at all was in order to obtain 



66 

military efficiency. I can think of no calamity that would be 
much greater to our country than would be the seizing of her 
youths at the very age when they should be entering institu- 
tions of higher learning, or making a start upon their life 
work, sending them from home and all home influences and 
makings them devote, all at once, and for a pei'iod of two 
years, or one year, or even several months, all of their time 
^nd energies to a profession that was not intended to be theii 
life-work, nor of much kin to it. And this, too, notwithstand- 
ing that the training received would do the individual young 
men good in many respects. A better result for the indivi- 
dual, and one not dangerous to the nation can be had by an- 
other system of training. This latter system would also in- 
clude the complementary training of girls and young women, 
and their need for it and the nation's need for them to have 
it is fully as great as is the need of the boys and the young 
men. 

This proposed system would, among other blessings, fos- 
ter a real "back to the land" movement, for it would place 
Agriculture on a plane where it belongs, and which it has 
never occupied before. And while doing so, it would inject 
untold efficiency into- every legitimate occupation — and kill sev- 
eral of the other kind. 

It would soon make the faiTn a mighty nice place to live 
and would win many a boy and girl to it. The other system 
— the Prussian, Monarchial, "Militaristic" system — would have 
a great tendency to drive the young from the faiTti. Not 
many, after serving' an extended period of training with the 
"colors," all at one time, and just at the restless age. would be 
willing to go back to the drab and desolate existence of ordin- 
ary farni life, as it is and would continue to be, unless im- 
proved in some such manner as provided in this proposed sys- 
tem. 

A great educator who was a splendid fanner and Secre- 
tary of the State Board of Agriculture of a great state ask- 
ed me, one day, when I was presenting a few of the outlines 
of this system to him: 

"But why do you wish to saddle this splendid plan with 
the additional burden of military training? I agree that it 
would be fine for agriculture and for every form of education 
to have a system arranged on your plan, if it could be done ; 
but I want to know why we should be made to give up a 
portion of the student's time to this military training?" My 
answer was: 

"Because real military training, the West Point and Ann- 
apolis kind, will teach the pupil to so arrange and systematize 
his work, his play, his whole life, in fact, as to make all his 
tasks easier and cause them to be better and more thoroughly 
done. Because military training will make the teaching force 



67 

more efficient. Because it will teach the pupil to 'work hard 
when he works and to play hard when he plays'. Because it 
will give to the pupil physical excellence, mental superiority 
and moral steadfastness not to be found so well taught and 
illustrated anywhere else under the sun. Because it will train 
him in discipline — a thing needed even more, if possible, than 
health-training. Because the advantages and benefits that 
would accrue to the individual and to the state are so numer- 
ous and so great that it would take more than a whole book 
to teil them all. And, lastly, because it would give to the 
people of our country the training and the preparation which 
we so greatly need for them to have for the National De- 
f ense . " 

He agre'ed that some of the things named would be good, 
if militaiy training would produce them. He seemed to doubt 
it. He had never given the subject thorough, impartial and 
unprejudiced consideration. And he "pooh-poohed" the idea 
that we should ever have any need of being prepared for the 
National Defense. The world had grown too wise to ever 
engage in another war, he said. This was before the Great 
War! 

This honest and sincere opinion of his, and the similar 
honest and sincere but erroneous, opinions of thousands of 
others prevented the sensible preparation that wou-d have kept 
us from being compelled to enter the war. Mr. Blank's 
opinion and the illfounded opinions, similar to his, kept us 
from so training and preparing that, when war d'd come, our 
condition was such that we had at least 25,000 more killed 
and 100.000 more wounded than we would have had if we had 
had our boys and our young men previously well trained and 
prepared . 

Also this war cost us thirty thousand millions of dollars 
— more than enough to have paid for the training of all our 
high school and college boys for a hundred years. If we had 
been doing that, we would not have had this war. 

And still today there are some honest, sincere and wise 
(?) people who declare against such a system and ask why 
I we should "burden" our educational system with it. 
I Carlyle once wrote, "This world contains about 1,250,000,- 
I 000 people — mostly fools." 

Jesus drove the thieves and profiteers out of the temple 
I of the living God, and men hanged Him upon a tree. 

j Herbert Spencer says, in effect, that when a man pre- 

\ sents a new idea to the world, they first want to bum him 
at the stake or hang him . If he persists they then want to 
1 submerge his proposition by ridicule and innuendo. If he 
\ still persists and achieves success, then they all fall in line, 
; adopt the idea and right soon are ready to say, and believe, 
'.that they themselves were the originators of it. 



68 

Burris Jenkins says, "For the world, made up as it is of 
erring men of passionate impulses, has in all ages been wont 
to crucify or burn its benefactors, either literally or figura- 
tively." 

Probably the real reason why the real solution to this 
question of military strength has been overlooked is the same 
as that which made it impossible for the Spanish courtiers 
to understand how Columbus was going to make the- egg stand 
on end. It is so simple and easy. 

The solution to almost any great question is simple and 
easy when one knows how. 

The solution of nearly all the problems arising from the 
faults and deficiencies of so-called "human nature" lies in the 
proper training of the young. But "there are none so blind 
as those who will not see" ; and once a stubborn man or wo- 
man has made up his or her mind, through prejudice, it is 
adamant — it cannot be changed. 

Let us look at a few of the Military and Naval things 
this proposed system would do for us: 

In the first place the Navy which must always be our 
real "first line", should, of course, be the best on earth as 
befits our position and our probable needs among the nations; 
and should be capable of such immediate e-xpansion in per- 
sonnel as would insure victory against any probable foe 
amongst the still-numerous wild-beast nations. The navy mat- 
eriel should be kept at top notch of size and efficiency at all 
times; for it cannot be produced quickly when the emergency 
comes . 

This proposed system would give to the country men, in 
numbers amply sufficient for any needed expansion, who had 
received the basic training in Military and Discipline and Mor- 
ale which would make them quickly available for sea-warfare 
as well as that on the land. 

The number that would be needed permanently in this 
branch of the service is unknown to me; but there are un- 
biased experts who do know, and their advice should, at least, 
be given due weight. What I do know is that this system 
would furnish practically unlimited personal material for any 
needed expansion. These would be men who had been train- 
ed from their youth up in the essentials. They would be 
"civilians" — citizns — first, and only called into the service when 
great need or emergency demanded it. Our country could 
have nothing to fear in the way of "Militarism" from them. 

I have had opportunity to consult with but few .naval ex- 
perts about this matter; but those with whom. I have discussed 
it were enthusiastic about it. Disinterested ones must neces- 
sarily be so; for it would be of the greatest and most lasting 
good to our country. 

In the second place, instead of needing a standing army ot 



I 



69 

somewhere bewteen one and two millions for the National De- 
fense, we should need only something' like 300,000 to 500,000 
for a land "first line." This number would not be excessive 
for our great and rich country, with all the potential great 
enemies she has in the world ; and could be obtained through 
voluntary enlistments, provided the inducements of pay, life 
insurance, and a goodly sum, loaned on a long time and at a 
low rate of interest, with which to start business (preferably 
farming) at the end of the enlistment, were made sufficiently 
attractive . 

I make this statement fully aware that most of our peo- 
ple are yet to be educated up to the value of such a life in- 
surance. But this plan would do it. 

It would also encourage one teiTn enlistments and would 
foster a real and mighty "back to the land" movement. Its 
cost would be great. That of any satisfactory and efficient 
system will be. But it would be insignificant compared to the 
many benefits resulting. And it would be insignificant com- 
pared with what we are likely to lose if we do not adopt some 
eff'ective plan of becoming militarily able to take care of and 
defend ourselves. 

It is not extravagance to expend vast sums when still 
vaster benefits are obtained thereby. 

Under this proposed system, we should have a nucleus 
Army of, say, eighteen divisions. And back of it, ready, or- 
ganized, trained throughout their youth, a civilian host of as 
many millions as we could possibly need. With such "pre- 
paredness" and with the concomitant mo^al training of our 
people and our nation, which would make it impossible for us 
to be or act the "bully," we would not have war. "Militarism" 
would not be ours; for this vast force would also be "civilians" 
— citizens — first, and only called into service when necessity 
demanded, and then only at the behest of the people's elected 
I representatives . 

I The men (and women too, for that matter) should be or- 

j ganized, each having been previously assigned to that dtity 
j and position which he or she is best fitted to fill. This does 
\ not mean that we should put women on the firing line, Mr. 
Scoffer . 

After a few years, those who had so fitted and educated 

themselves, and had received training such as to make them 

j capable of being efficient officers would be amplv sufficient in 

I number to officer the vast hosts available as soldiers, in case 

I of need, 

j; If war did come we should then be spared the necessity of 

1 again seeing our brave and splendid youth commanded by 
' "half-baked" almost untrained officers — men of excellent parts 
I mostly, but so little conversant with the business of soldiering: 



70 

that they could not be nearly so efficient as they ought to 
have been ; and whose principal idea of Military Discipline was 
in many cases, that it consisted, for the most part, in punish- 
ing somebody, or "rubbing someone's fur the wrong way" or 
otherwise making all below them in rank uncomfortable; and 
in requiring obedience to orders without thought, on their 
part, as to whether the orders were right or the best fitting 
the case or even just or legal. 

I do not wonder that the young men of America came 
back from Europe with the utmost disgust for what they 
thought, and still think, is Military Discipline. Our country 
with its free institutions, its republican-democratic government, 
and its system of public education produced men who made 
soldiers notwithstanding tliis handicap of undertraining for 
themselves and their officers. They succeeded; but it was in 
spite of this handicap, not because of it. They were brave 
enough and big enough, in soul, to be willing to die in great 
numbers because of our having failed to prepare, as one of 
the Generals put it. We can prevent that ever being neces- 
sary in the future by a very simple method. Let us do it. 

Those who had received training for officers, under the 
proposed system should be organized, assigned and equipped 
— ready at a moment's call. So, also, should be a sufficient 
number of non-commissioned officers and the privates. No 
restrictions need be placed on where a man lived nor what 
vocation he followed in life. If he moved, he need merely 
be transferred from one organization to another. If he made 
himself more proficient in some other calling than that which 
caused him to receive his original assignment, his assignment 
should also be changed. 

The women of the land should likewise be organized and as- 
signed for their respective war-duties ; for, if the emergency 
should come, their help would be a great factor; and nothing 
of this kind can be done without organization. 

Whole volumes would be necessary to go into all the de- 
tails cf the plan of National Defense resulting from this pro- 
posed system of training for the youth of our country. But 
here it is sufficient to say that it should be made to work like 
a clockwork in capability and efficiency in case of need; and 
at the same time practically all of the countiy's defenders 
would be and remain "civilians" until the need arose. Not 
much danger of Prussian-like "Militarism" resulting from that; 
and yet so efficient a "military system" that no nation in its 
right senses would ever again try to make war on us, or to 
force us into a war. 

Pray get well-fixed in your mind the distinction between 
this system, which gives to the citizen his (and her) military 
(and complementary) training throughout the years of youth, 
when it is most easily assimilated, and will also most greatly 



ft 



71 

benefit the recipient in the matter of securing an "education", 
and at the same time leaves the pupil always a civilian firsts 
and only called into service upon necessity; and that system 
which proposes to neg-lect training and greatly needed discipline 
throughout the youth-time of the citizen, and then grab him 
up at an age when he can least spare the time, take him fix)m 
home and home-influences when they, too, should remain a 
most potent influence in the formation of his character, and 
put him for an extended period, a unit in a vast army of sol- 
diers, where training in citizenship and in the interests of 
civilian life are in abeyance, and where the soldier is neces- 
sarily first and the civilian not at all. The result, if such a 
plan for military strength as this latter one is adopted, must 
be a large military caste, and ultimate monarchy with all at- 
tendant evils. 

There are many ways in which our great country could be 
rained. Pitfalls on the land, and whirlpools in the water are 
all about us. But probably, next to not preparing for Na- 
tional Defense at all, the swiftest and surest road to the de- 
struction of us and our institutions would lie in the adoption of 
a Prussianistic plan for our military training and for the Na- 
tional Defense. Destruction would come from within and our 
down-fall would be certain. 

One Saturday evening when I was a boy there sat the 
usual bunch around the stove in the country store and whit- 
tled and talked. Theology was the subject, though the most 
of them had probably never heard of the word. 

Said old man "Bat" Washam: 

"I believe that God intended every man for some good pur- 
pose, and that He helps him along and pulls him through the 
dangers c^nd pit-falls of childhood, and even later years often. 
If He did not there wouldn't be one in a hundred of 'em ever 
grow up." 

Some a.greed and some opposed, and there was the usual 
long-dra\Mi-out discussion. But it seemed to me a pretty good 
doctrine then, ?»nd does yet. 

Presently the speaker of those sentiments got a chance 
! to talk again and added: 

j "But I don't think that any man fully lives up to God's 

intentions and pui-poses. He shirks and goes the wrong road 
willfully until he generally defeats God's plans entirely, so far 
as he is concerned." 

That, too, seemed to be true. The speaker himself was 
I an illustration of it. He was one of the "poor white trash." 
I * The Lord God Almighty must have some special work for 
I the United States of America to do in this world. It seems 
J plain to me that His hand has been manifest a great many 
times in helping us through crises, and in oftentimes saving 
us from our own heedlessness and wrong doing. 

We peiTnitted the foreign slave-trade until 1808, and it 



72 

must certainly have been Divine Providence that let us escape 
from the pall of slavery without dismembering the nation. 
Of course we were left with an awful race problem on our 
hands; but maybe He will help us to solve that also. We do 
need God's help to solve that, for the way ahead looks dark 
and gloomy regarding it. 

We permitted the reign of the wicked King Alcohol to 
continue for 143 years, and He surely helped us to cast that 
"unclean spirit" down from the throne without a bloody in- 
ternal war . 

We denied to our women free and equal rights, too; and 
He is helping us now to correct that great mistake without 
our going through a campaign of "militant suffragettes . " 

We grew rich beyond the wildest dreams of any former 
nation, and established a political system hated by every mon- 
archial people in the world, when nearly all the others were 
monarchies ; and meanwhile, we neglected to make any ade- 
quate preparation for the defense of our riches or of our re- 
publican system of government. That we were not so pre- 
pared, and that Divine Providence helped us out every time 
when the great need came, let anyone who doubts I'ead Gen- 
eral Upton's "Military Policy of the United States" (to be 
had free of charge from the Government at Washington) . 

And then came the Great War, and we found three big 
nations and a number of smaller ones standing between us and 
the enemy until we could take the necessary twelve months to 
get partially ready. Divine Intei-position ? It certainly looks 
like it. 

But we had to pay. We would not have had that war if 
we had been prepared ; for Germany would never have forced 
us into it if she had not known that we were not prepared 
and thought we could not get prepared in time to do the 
allies any good . 

And we lost 25,000 more dead and 100,000 more wounded 
than we should have, even if the war had come, if we had 
been prepared. 

Also, we are paying financially, and will be for a long 
time. That war would probably not have cost us one-tenth 
what it did if we had been prepared. It cost us more money 
than would be the net expense of the system of training and 
preparedness herein proposed for a hundred years. 

But the Spirit of God will not always strive with man; 
and we cannot hope for His care and protection beyond the 
point where we render ourselves useless and a hindrance to» 
His purposes and plans. 

Some day we shall find ourselves face to face with a cold 
proposition that will overwhelm us and make us a spoil and 
a vassal if we do not exercise a little more "common sense" 
in this matter of preparedness. For the tiger-nations and the 

li 



73 

lion-nations and the jackal-nations and the serpent-nations are 
still upon the Earth, going about and seeking whom they may 
devour . 

Wrong-doing brings bad results to men and nations; but 
foolishness often destroys them. 

Let us beware, lest we by our own willful folly, thwart 
the Divine plans intended for us, even as so many individual 
men do, and bring our nation to nothingness, even as has 
been done to themselves by many nations before us. 

Let us be sensible. 

Let us not be fools and neglect to prepare to defend our- 
selves and the God-given temple of Liberty that is our inheri- 
tance, and which, if we use it right, will be the means of free- 
ing and enlightening the world. 

And let us not be fools either by using means in pre- 
paring to defend ourselves that will enchain us again, deform 
our sense of right and justice, make a bully of us, destroy 
our democracy and lead us along the same lines that led our 
late enemies to theu^ fall, when there is available, and already 
partially demonstrated in Switzerland — the oldest republic in 

existence — and in Australia — the newest great democracy 

systems which we should be able to improve upon and make a 
true and lasting model for the world. 



CHAPTER V. 



OUTLINE OF GENERAL PLAN. 

"We must train and classify the whole of our male citi- 
zens, and make military instruction a part of collegiate edu- 
cation. We can never be safe till this is done." * 

In studying this plan, please keep in mind that the wiiter 
does not mean to claim that the aid, assistance and supervi- 
sion of the various schools by the United States should neces- 
sarily be precisely that here recommended, either in the amount 
of help given or the supervision and inspections furnished. 
These details will have to be worked out by many minds, op- 
erating jointly, and will certainly have to be modified from 
time to time as advancements are made. 

For instance, the time might not be far distant when it 
would be thou^S'ht advisable to establish women''^ .National 
Academies for special instruction in war duties, at suitable 
places, similar to those for men at West Point and Annapolis. 

And it seems quite probable that institutions along similar 
lines would be inaugurated for the purpose of original research 
and the special study of legislation, journalism, diplomacy, 
etc., and especially of health preservation and medicine. This 
latter science seems to be, as yet, only at the threshold of 
its possibilities . 

Other and greater unfoi-eseeable advancements would 
doubtless be numerous. 

But the principles intended to be set forth are fundamen- 
tal. The inducements must be made great enough to cause 
all the states and communities to co-opfirate with the General 
Government in giving to all our young people sufficient and 
efficient education and trainin,g in all the essentials. 

And the inducements for military and naval training must 
be great enough to insure that ultimately practically every 
able-bodied young man in the country shall have received at 
least the rudiments of military training or naval training dur- 
ing his school life; and also practically all young women shall 
similarly have received a suitable complementary training for 
whatever war duties might fitly devolve upon them. 

Anything less than that set forth herein, either in the 
civilian training or in the military, would be too little; and 



* Thomas Jefferson in letter to James Madison in 1813. 
(See Literary Digest for March 3, 1919, p. 140.) 



75 

we have neglected the training of our youth in both these 
phases far too much and a great deal too long. Let us for 
once be up and doing, not only better and wiser than any 
other nation is doing, but also better, fai* better, than we our- 
selves have ever done before. 

Kindly note also, as previously statexl, that material and 
moral inducements are held out to the states and communities 
for their co-operation, rather than compulsions. Also that as 
many inducements and as few compulsions as practicable are of- 
fered individuals to cause them to submit themselves to train- 
ing and discipline. Especially is this so in dealing with those 
who have reached an age which renders them capable of de- 
ciding reasonably and logically for themselves such things as 
attending college or university, etc. 

Yet it is intended that the inducements shall be big enough 
to cause a large number to seek a higher education and the 
more advanced instruction in Military and Physical Training, 
Discipline and Morale. 

In any case, if the inducements offered are shown to be 
insufficient to achieve the desired results, they should be in- 
creased or changed until they are sufficient. We are rich 
enough to adopt and operate this system, and we are a great 
deal too poor not to do so. Then let us use it until the sys- 
tem itself shall bring forth a better and higher one than any- 
thing which we (in our semi-benighted state) can now imagine. 



SECTION ONE. 



THE BEGINNING— THE PREPARATORY STAGE. 

This should consist in enlarging and improving the pres- 
ent system in universities and colleges. 

We have already taken the first step — a very small step, 
indeed; but, nevertheless, it is a start in the right direction. 
The General Government has granted certain property and 
moneys to the states on condition that they establish and 
maintain certain schools in which, among other things, the 
subject of "Military Science and Tactics" is to be taught. 
Army officers in very limited and insufficient number are fur- 
nished as professors of "Military Science and Tactics"; and a 
system of inadequate and too-infrequent inspections has been 
inaugurated. Lately the system has been somewhat expand- 
ed and improved by the introduction of the Reserve Officers* 
Training Corps scheme. 

It is only necessary further to enlarge upon these suf- 
ficiently to make our educational system really efficient, cause 



76 

it to reach every child in the land, and, at the same time, 
give to all of them that regular and systematic training in 
.doing all things, of which they stfind so sorely in need. And 
this would at the same time make our nation the strongest 
and most efficient upon the face of the Earth from a military 
standpoint, without the slightest danger of making our coun- 
try "Militaristic." 

Instructors, trainers and teachers in all subjects in all 
"aided" and "approved" schools, of whatever degree, should be 
adequately paid. 

This should be secured by a scale of minimum salaries, 
which should be prescribed by a joint committee from the War 
Department, the Navy Department, the Agricultural Depart- 
ment and the Educational Department at Washington. This 
scale should be uniform throughout the United States; but 
salaries in excess of the prescribed minima should not be pro- 
hibited, but rather encouraged ^whenever conditions warrant. 

We cannot hope to give instruction in Military and Physi- 
cal Training, Discipline and Morale to all the youth of our 
country, nor even to any considerable portion of them without 
a sufficient number of competent and well-qualified instructors. 
Neither can we hope to have all of the large number of such 
instructors that will ultimately be needed furnished by the 
Amiv and the Navy. Only a comparatively small proportion 
could be so furnished . But if these Services be allowed a rea- 
sonable number of "Extra" officers, a sufficient number could 
be detailed for supervisory service in the higher institutions 
and for a proper superintendance and inspection in the high 
and primary schools. Practically all such instructors in the 
primary schools and high schools and the majority of such 
in the subordinate positions in the colleges and universities, 
too. must be obtained from among those who have received the 
training in such institutions themselves or in the next higher. 
So. in order that the training shall be given systematically 
and by competent instructors, the beginning must be made by 
training those in the higher institutions first, for the most 
part, and by following this up with similar training in the 
high and primary schools just as soon and just as fast as 
instructors can be provided. 

How is the best way to do this? 

I recommend : 

1. FINANCIAL INDUCEMENTS. SUPERVISIONS AND 
OBLIGATIONS. CURRICULA. 

Make the financial inducements offered by the General 
Government so big and so universal that, when added to the 
providing of competent Instructors in Military and Physical 



77 

Training, Discipline and Morale, no college or university would, 
or could afford to be left out. 

Then see, by a proper system of inspections that all those 
institutions which accepted such aid lived up to their duty in 
the matter, by requiring that Mechanic Arts, Agriculture and 
Home Economics or Domestic Science were being taught to a 
reasonable number of their pupils for a reasonable time; and 
that courses in Athletics, Health-Preservation and Moral 
Science were being given to all throughout a four-year course. 
Also that all men students were taking "Military" in the Re- 
serve Officers Training Corps (or rather in an expansion and 
modification of it) for four years, and that all women students 
were taking a suitable complementary course for the same 
length of time, in what might well be denominated, the Re- 
serve Women's Training Coips. 

The curricula of each of these latter courses should oc- 
cupy, say, one hour per day for five days per week, with an 
"inspection" or other ceremony on Saturday, and one muster 
and inspection per month. At least three-fifths of this work 
should be practical; and there should be encampments of at 
least two weeks per year; and at least two of these encamp- 
ments should be attended by each pupil before he or she is 
allowed to graduate. 

The "school year" should consist of twelve "school months" 
of twenty-eight days (24 week days and four Sundays) each. 

There should be detailed from the Army or the Navy at 
least one officer as Instructor in Military and Physical Train- 
ing, Discipline and Morale for each 300 pupils (battalion) and 
one of higher rank for each 1200 (regiment) . Also a suit- 
able number of warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and 
privates for duty as assistants in clerical work, care-takers of 
material, etc., in the Military or Naval Department of the in- 
stitution . 



2. PERSONAL INDUCEMENTS. APPOINTMENTS TO 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES, ETC. 

There should be offered further inducements, carrying 
tcorresponding obligations to teach and serve, first, to agricul- 
tural students. These are placed first because agriculture is 
the most important business of our country, and should be 
scientifically studied by the greatest number of our young peo- 
ple. Also, up to this time, it seems to be the furthest be- 
hind and to receive the least attention and intelligent study, 
compared with the numbers engaged, of any of the learned 
professions. Perhaps, as the majority of others seem to do, 



78 

you think it is not one of the learaed professions; but it ought 
to be. 

This proposed system would certainly bring it to the front 
where it belongs, and would, at the same time, so increase 
production and the conservation of agricultural resources that 
the cost would be so small compared to the benefits as to be 
hardly felt at all. 

a. Appointments to Agricultural Colleges. 

Allow each State Senator and each State Representative 
to appoint one cadet and one cadette to the State Agricultural 
College each year. Also, allow the governor to appoint, say, 
one-twentieth as many as all the others. 

All appointments should be made by competitive examin- 
ation and within the constituency, if practicable — if not, any- 
where within the state. In case of failure to appoint by any 
senator or representative, such appointment should be made 
by the governor; and in the case of his failure to do his duty 
in the matter, the War Department or the Navy Department 
should make the appointment direct. 

b. Pay and Obligations of Appointees. 

Let each such appointed cadet and cadette receive for four 
years (unless sooner discharged, or no longer in attendance 
for any reason) say $40.00 per month — $480.00 per year — 
one-half to be paid by the state, and the other half by the 
United States . 

Such appointed cadets should be obligated to serve, after 
graduation, as United States Instructors or Assistant Instruc- 
tors in MilitaiT' and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale 
in colleges and high schools or grade schools, if so required, 
for at least four years ; and as Reserve Officers of the Army 
or Navy for at least ten years, if called upon to do so. The 
teaching service should be rendered wherever required in his 
owTi state, and for whatever pay is allowed by the United 
States for such service. The reserve service to be rendered 
wherever he resides, unless called into active service. In that 
case wherever required. Also each appointed graduated cadet 
should serve as a resei-ve or as a volunteer officer on active 
duty, in case of war, until the age of forty-five, if called upon 
to do so. 

Similar obligations to teach and to serve, in fitting capac- 
ity, should be required of all appointed cadettes. 

c. Barracks, Donnitories, Buildings and Grounds. In- 
structors. 

Require barracks, say, similar to the new West Point 
cadet barracks to be built for all cadets, and suitable dormitor- 
ies for all cadettes; and require all appointed cadets and ca- 
dettes to be and remain single, and to live in their respective 
barracks and dormitories. Also require all other cadets and 



79 

cadettes to live in their respective barracks and dormitories, 
if not marrie*d. 

The original cost and the up-keep of the barracks and the 
dormitories should be borne equally by the state and the Gen- 
eral Government, and they should be furnished rent-free to 
all cadets and cadettes. 

The state and the General Government should also share 
equally the expense of furnishing the land occupied' by the 
barracks and dormitories, drill-grounds, athletic-fields, gymnas- 
iums, camping grounds (two) maneuver-grounds and target- 
ranges . 

The state and community should be required to furnish 
all instructors in subjects other than Military and Physical 
Training, Discipline and Morale, and should, probably, be re- 
quired to pay one-half the salary of all instructors in Military 
and Physical Trainin,g, Discipline and Morale (other than Army 
and Navy officers) who would be needed to assist the Aimy 
and Navy officers detailed. Also, half the salary of all United 
States women instructors in corresponding complementary sub- 
jects. But the choice of all such instructors, both men and 
women, should be subject to the approval of the War or Navy 
Department, accoixiing to the nature of the school ; and, if 
necessary, should be made by them, as in case the school 
authorities persist in selecting none or unsuitable ones, 

d. Uniforms, Arms, Equipments, Etc. 

Unifoi-ms of the kind prescribed by the War or the Navy 
Department, as the case may be, and suitable for the place 
and latitude, not subject to change oftener than, say, once 
every twenty-five years, except by act of Congress, should be 
furnished" free to all cadets and cadettes by the United States 
to the value of, say, $75 . 00 per year for each pupil . No mon- 
ey "savings" on unifonn should be allowed. 

All uniforms should be and remain always the property 
of the United States and should be turned in upon graduation 
or whenever the student leaves , the institution permanently . 

All cadets and cadettes shouM be required to wear uniforms 
at all times when on school ur military duty, except when 
engaged in duties unsuitable to uniform, such as practical 
agriculture, athletics, laboratory work, etc. 

The United States should also furnish all arms, equip- 
ments, camp-equipage, ammunition for target-practice, etc. 

Such women students as so desire should be pennitted to 
take a suitable course in target-practice, but separate from 
the course taken therein by men students. Suitable Hght 
rifles and pistols should be provided for this by the United 
States . 



80 

3. APPOINTMENTS TO TEACHERS COLLEGES. 

Very soon after, and perhaps simultaneously with the agri- 
cultural school, should be organized the same system of ap- 
pointments, inducements and obligations for the Teachers' Col- 
lege or Department of Education of each such institution in 
each state. 

For, upon the proper training of all teachers, more than 
upon any other one thing, will depend the success or the 
failure of the plan . 

4. APPOINTMENTS IN OTHEPv DEPARTMENTS. 

This should be followed, as soon as practicable, by a simi- 
lar organization and encouragement, through a similar system 
of appointments, pay, etc., and carrying corresponding obliga- 
tions in the Academic, Engineering, Law, Medical, Journalism 
and other Departments of each "aided" institution. 

Wherever the Agricultural Department, Teachers' College, 
etc., are separate institutions from the State University all 
should be included and classed as "aided," and should be 
"aided," provid'ed they fulfill the requirements. 

Ultimately no benefit should be given to any state educa- 
tional institution, college or department of the State University 
over another, provided it fulfills the requirements, except that 
the number of appointees to the agricultural colleges and to 
the teachers' colleges might well be made at least double the 
number made to any other department. 

No pay or benefit should accrue to any appointee without 
the corresponding obligations being assumed by him or her. 

5. ARMS, UNIFORMS, EQUIPMENTS, INSTRUCTORS, 
ETC., TO BE FURNISHED BY THE UNITED STATES TO 
OTHER THAN THE REGULARLY "AIDED" INSTITUTIONS, 
WHICH FULFILL THE REQUIRED CONDITIONS. 

The United States should similarly furnish half the pay 
for assistant instructors in "Military and Physical Training, 
Discipline and Morale," and corresponding women instructors 
or assistants, detail suitable Army or Navy enlisted personnel, 
and should supply all ai-ms, equipments, camp-equipage, am- 
munition for target-practice, etc., and also the same amount 
for uniforms for each cadet and cadette as mentioned in para- 
graph 2, sub-paragraph d'., above, free, to all students in 
other schools and colleges which comply with requirements, 
and where one or more AiTny or Navy officers are detailed in 
accordance with law as "Instructors in Military and Physical 
Training, Discipline and Morale." 

But no cadets or cadettes should be "appointed" to these 
"approved" institutions, nor should any funds be supplied to 
them by the United States for buildings, grounds, etc. 

The same regulations should* exist and be strictly enforced 



81 

in regard to the wearing- of the uniforms; and all uniforms, as 
before, should be and remain the property of the United States, 
and should be surrendered upon graduation, or whenever the 
student severs connection with the institution. 

The establishment of units of the Reserve Officers' Train- 
ing Coi-ps should be fostered in these institutions and these 
units should be increased' in importance and efficiency. 

Similar units of a "Reserve Women's Training Corps" 
should also be established, maintained and fostered. 

The same or similar assistances should be furnished, under 
similar conditions, to "junior colleges" and to institutions giv- 
ing a curriculum equivalent to a high school course, or high- 
er; and in these should be encouraged the establishment (where 
not already existent) and maintenance of junior units of the 
Reserve Officers' Training Corps. These units should also re- 
ceive greater financial aid and encouragement than at present. 

Similarly also in these institutions should be established 
junior units of a "Reserve Women's Training Corps." 

6. LOANS TO STUDENTS BY THE UNITED STATES. 

At anytime within two years after graduation from high 
school, upon the certificates of three reputable citizens to the 
effect that neither he (or she) nor his (or her) parents are 
financially able to pay the apphcant's necessary expenses at a 
college or university, and with the recommendation of the 
applicant's high school authorities, the United States should 
loan to any person so desiring a sum equal to that paid to 
appointees, in order to enable him (or her) to take a four-year 
course at some "aided" or "approved" college or university. 

But no such recommendations should be required from 
those who apply for such loan within six months after gradu- 
ation from high school. 

Such loan should be paid to the recipient monthly, and 
in a manner similar to that in which "appointed" cadets and 
cadettes receive their pay. 

The recipient of such a lo§,n should be obligated similarly* 
to an appointee. 

The loan should bear, say, four per cent interest; and the 
recipient should be required to begin to pay it as soon as 
practicable, and' always within five years after completion of 
his (or her) four-year course, or within one year after leav- 
ing school if the course is not completed. 

After the time for beginning repayment, the recipient of 
the loan should repay annually a sum equal to, at least, ten 
percent of his annual net income for the preceding year, un- 
til all of both principal and interest shall have been repaid. 

No student should continue to receive this loan if his or 



82 

her school work is not satisfactorily done, just as no "ap- 
pointed" cadet or cadette should be retained under similar 
conditions . 

Guarantee ag^ainst loss to the United States by death of 
the recipient should be made by means of an insurance of the 
recipient's life in favor of the United States. Such insurance 
might well be carried by a United States Insurance Bureau, 
all recipients of such loans being required to buy a "four-pay- 
ment" policy for, say, $2,500.00 during the four years that 
they are receiving the aid of this loan. This policy, or any 
part left thereof, would become the property of the recipient 
or of his heirs, when the loan had been fully repaid, both 
principal and interest. 

The United States should hardly need a guarantee ag^ainst 
the loss of such loans through dishonesty of recipients; for, 
if this system of instruction and training be carried out ear- 
nestly and in good faith, those receiving loans would nearly 
all be incapable of such a mean act. 

Now that liquor is banished from our country, it is 
thought that very few would prove so incompetent and worth- 
less as to be unable to repay. 



SECTION TWO. 

CONTINUATION. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM IN 

HIGH SCHOOLS. 

Only a comparative few of the young men and young wo- 
men in this or any other country ever attend a college or 
university. Let us hope that this system will make a marked 
change for the better in that respect. But so it is at present. 

Consequently the training recommended in Section One 
— ^The Preparatory Stag^e — above, gi-eat as its results would 
necessarily be, would not reach a sufficient number to bring 
our entire system of training up to the desired standard, nor 
to make us a really efficient nation from a military point of 
view. 

But we have many high schools and their number and 
the number of pupils attending them are both increasing, 
though not nearly as rapidly as should be the case. For these 
reasons, it is logical that this class of educational institution 
should next engage our attention in the matter of furnishing 
their students with this system of training and instruction. 

High schools should be made available, and attendance 
at them should be required of all children who have completed 



83 

the common or grammar (graded) school course, both in the 
country and in the city. But the city and the town have al- 
most a monopoly of them as yet. 

Such as exist in the country, and even the city high 
schools, are almost universally sadly lacking in such things as 
beautification of grounds, ample physical exercise facilities and 
play-grounds, and, especially, grounds for the practical ap- 
plication of the basic principles of agriculture. Many even 
lack suitable laboratory, manual training or domestic science 
equipment . 

It should be one of the requirements for receiving United 
States "aid" that these last three be satisfactorily supplied in 
part — at least one-half — by the state and the community. 

The pay of teachers and instructors should be adequate, 
and not below the minimum scale prescribed by the General 
Government committee . 

Suitable grounds, buildings, etc., should' be made available 
by the joint and equal sharing of the expense by the state 
and the nation, the state's portion being permitted to be made 
up, in part, whenever practicable, by the community. 

As previously indicated, country high schools are, for the 
most part, yet to be established ; and yet there is nothing in 
our educational system that is so greatly needed. As it is 
at present the country boy or girl who desires a college edu- 
cation finds a four-year gap between the highest work to be 
obtained in the common school and the requirements for en- 
trance into the college or the university. This necessitates 
the chiWs either doing without college training, or that he or 
she be sent to the town or city away from parental care and 
supervision at an age when such care and supervision are most 
needed. High schools should therefore be established 
throughout the country as speedily as practicable. 

Each state and county should be scientifically divided into 
high school districts, having due repard to local conditions 
of terrain, population, kinds of roads, etc. 

No community, nor, with almost no exception, no .family 
should be left out. 

A suitable building and grounds should then he provided 
for each such high school. The original cost should not be 
less than, say, $30,000.00, but, otherwise should not exceed', 
say, $500.00 per pupil, nor be less than, say, $400.00 per 
pupil of high school age in the district. One-half of this cost 
should be borne by the United States and the other half by 
the community or the state, or by both combined. 

This United States aid and other assistance described later 
should be made available to each and every high school that 



84 

complies with the requirements set by the General Govern- 
ment . * 

That of suitable equipment for teaching and training in 
certain subjects has already been mentioned. 

Further requirements should be that all boy pupils take 
the prescribed course in Military and Physical Training, Dis- 
cipline and Morale, and all girl pupils its suitable prescribed 
complement. Also that proper medical and dental supervision 
and instruction should be given to all pupils; that all be given 
four-year courses in the basic principles and practical work in 
agriculture, and in morals and ethics; and that all the boys 
be given a considerable and reasonable amount of instruction 
in manual training, and all the girls a corresponding amount 
of work in home economics or domestic science. 

It should also be required that all "aided" high schools 
operate and continue in session for twelve school-months of 
28 days (24 week-days and 4 Sundays) each per year. 

1. INSTRUCTORS FURNISHED BY THE UNITED STATES. 

The United States should furnish free to all these "aided" 
high schools, so long as they fulfill requirements, one Instruc- 
tor in Military and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale 
for each 300 pupils (battalion) or fraction thereof. These 
should be junior officers of the Arniy or Navy, at least until 
sufficient number of suitable and qualified instructors can be 
graduated from obligated cadets in the universities and col- 
leges, as recommended in Section One, above. 

Also, similarly, obligated women instructors should be 
furnished for corresponding work with the girl pupils. 

In all cases where such high school has miore than 300 
pupils, there should remain an Arm.y or Navy officer at the 
head of the department of Military and Physical Training, 
Discipline and Morale. These should preferably be graduates 
of one of the two National Academies or, at least, officers of 
several years experience. 

2. ARMS, EQUIPMENTS, UNIFORMS, CAMP EQUIPAGE, 
ETC., FURNISHED TO HIGH SCHOOLS BY THE 
UNITED STATES. 

The United States should furnish free also all arms, equip- 
ments, camp equipage, etc., needed. Also to all high school 
pupils in such "aided" high schools the uniform prescribed by 
the War Department or the Navy Department, as the case 
may require, to the value of, say, $50.00 per year for each 
pupil. Such uniforms, equipments, etc., should be and remain 
the property of the United States and should be turned in 
upon graduation or whenever the pupil permanently quits the 
school . 



85 

UnifoiTns should be required to be worn during* encamp- 
ments and at all other military or naval duties. Also at all 
times during school hours, except when the pupil is engaged 
in laboratory or athletic work or manual labor as in manual 
training, practical domestic science, practical agriculture, 
etc. 

3. CASH ASSISTANCE IN MAINTENANCE TO HIGH 
SCHOOLS BY THE UNITED STATES. 

The United States should pay to each high school which 
fulfills the required conditions an annual cash sum, for assist- 
ance in maintenance, proportional to the number of its pupils 
in actual attendance the year previous. 

This sum should be uniformly apportioned throughout the 
United States for any one year, and should not be less than, 
say, $10.00 nor more than, say, $25.00 per pupil per annum; 
except that in states which provide for and by law require 
four years' attendance at high school by practically all pupils, 
the above-mentioned bonus should be doubled. 

4. GENERAL CORRESPONDING REQUIREMENTS. 

All "aided" high schools should require every boy to take 
as much as he is physically able of the full course in Military 
and Physical Training, Discipline and' Morale, and every girl 
to take the corresponding complementary course, suitable for 
them. 

5. TIME TO BE DEVOTED TO CERTAIN REQUIRED 
COURSES. 

These last mentioned courses should, for both boys and 
girls, consist of at least three-fourths of an hour per day, 
five days per week, throughout the entire four years high 
school course. At least three-fifths of this instruction should 
be practical. Also, there should be one "inspection" or other 
ceremony per week and one "muster and inspection" at the 
end of every school month. In addition, there should be a 
two-weeks encampment and instruction in "field exercises" 
every year; and no pupil should be permitted to graduate, or 
to obtain credit for his or her grades towards college or uni- 
versity entrance without attending at least two of these en- 
campments . 

The time devoted to the course in Agriculture should like- 
wise be at least three-fourths of one hour per day, five days 
per week, throughout the four years; and at least three-fifths 
of this should be practical instruction. 

Instniction in manual training and the handling of machin- 
ery should form part, but in no case all of the agricultural 
instruction given to the boys. 

Similarly, instruction in home economics, home-making and 



86 

house-keeping should form part, but in no case all, of the 
agricultural instruction given to girls. 

6. ADDITIONAL APPOINTMENTS TO COLLEGES AND 
UNIVERSITIES. 

In addition to the appointments of cadets and cadettes 
mentioned in Section One of this plan, there should be given, 
by merit as shown in school-work, or by competitive examina- 
tion, in e:ach high school, to one high school graduate in, say, 
every twenty or fraction thereof, each year, an appointment 
to the agricultural department of the university or other 
"aided" agricultural college of the state. 

Also, similar cadet and cadette appointments should be 
similarly made to the teachers' college, and as soon as practi- 
cable to the other departments of the State University or 
other "aided" state school or college. But the number receiv- 
ing appointments to the agricultural college and to the teach- 
ers' college should each be at least twice the number of those 
to any other department. 

These appointments should carry similar emoluments and 
obligations to those of appointed cadets and cadettes mention- 
ed in Section One, above. 

In the high schools of states which provide facilities for 
all and require practically all boys and girls of high school 
age to attend, the number of these appointments might well 
be doubled . 



7. INDIVIDUAL ASSISTANCE TO PUPILS. 

Of the pupils in such high schools as are fulfilling re- 
quirements, say, one out of evei*y ten, chosen for excellence 
in school work or by competitive examination, should be paid 
(one-half by the state and one-half by the United States) the 
sum of, say, $20.00 per month toward his or her maintenance 
during the last two years of the high school course, provided 
the pupil's work is being satisfactorily done, and provided fur- 
tlier, that the pupil has assumed obligation, with the consent 
of parent or guardian, to teach Military and Physical Training, 
Discipline and Morale, if a boy, or the corresponding comple- 
mentary subject, if a girl, for the General Government for 
at least two years in the common school as soon as the pupil's 
college course is completed, or immediately after graduation 
from high school if the college course is not taken. 

^ Indigent pupils of high school age should be given a like 
assistance, and should take upon themselves the corresponding 
obligations: but the refusal or failure to do so should not be 
allowed to operate to excuse the pupil from attendance at 
high school. 



87 

8. TERM OF ATTENDANCE AT HIGH SCHOOL. 

The teiTn of attendance of all pupils in "aided" high 
schools should, ordinarily, be four full school years. Excep- 
tional, indeed, should be the case where a pupil should be g^rad- 
uated in less time. But pupils who do not complete the course 
in four years should be required to continue- attendance until 
the course is completed, or until married, or until the age of 
twenty is reached. 

9. TEACHERS' VACATIONS AND TIME FOR PROFES- 
SIONAL IMPROVEMENT. 

Under this plan, teachers and pupils alike would have at 
least 29 days vacation per year, besides Sundays and part of 
Saturdays . 

During this vacation, teachers should receive full pay. 
Also as previously indicated approval of the amounts of pay 
being given to teachers should be one of the requirements of 
the United State's for "aiding" high schools or any other. 

High school teachers, and teachers in grade schools also 
should be permitted "one quarter" of a school-year on full 
pay, say, once every two years in which to attend a teachers' 
college, or some other approved institution for the purpose 
of professional self -improvement . Each teacher should' be 
required to take advantage of these opportunities for increase 
in efficiency if he" (or she) is to go on teaching, and to so 
spend this time in good faith. 

10. TUITION. 

Tuition should be free for all residents between the ages 
of thirteen and twenty years in all "aided" high schools. 

11. CURRICULA OF "AIDED" HIGH SCHOOLS. 

The curricula of all "aided" high schools should be ap- 
proved by the United States War or Navy Departments, as 
the cflse may reauire, so far as Military and Physical Train- 
ing, Discipline and Morale are concerned, and by the Secretary 
of Agriculture and a Secretary of Education respectively in 
other subjects taught. The United States Commissioner of 
Education should act in this matter until such time as the 
cabinet office of Secretary of Education is established. 

Successful completion of the four-year high-school course 
should peiTTiit immediate entrance, without further examina- 
tion, into the four-year course in the agricultural college, 
teachers' college, and the academic course of the university or 
other government-aided institution of the state. 

The supervision of the health of pupils in schools, and 
the instiiiction in public health should be approved by and 
should be under the joint direction of the Surgeon-General of 
the AiToy, the Surgeon-General of the Navy and the head of 
the Public Health Service of the United States. 



12. SERVICE IN RESERVES AFTER GRADUATION. 

All graduates of these "aided" high schools should be 
required to serve in the Reserve Officers' Corps, the Enlisted 
Reserve Corps, or the Reserve Women's Corps (yet to be 
established) wherever they may reside, if called upon to da 
so, for the next ten years following graduation, except when 
pursuing a higher course of study. Also, to serve, if called 
upon in case of war, in any capacity suitable to sex at any 
time until the age of forty-five. 

13. CONTINUATION OF THE TRAINING OF THESE RE- 
SERVES. 

Encampments for the continuation of the training of these 
Reserves should be held annually; but no member of the Re- 
serves should be required to attend these for a longer period 
than one month at a time, nor for an average of more than 
one week per year. 



SECTION THREE. 

COMPLETION. CARRYING THE SYSTEM INTO PRIMARY 
AND GRAMMAR (GRADE) SCHOOLS. 

In order to lay the proper foundation for both civil and 
military instruction in the high schools and colleges, and more 
especially in oixier to make sure that every boy in the United 
States shall have received, at least, the rudiments of military 
training and eveiy girl a corresponding complementary train- 
ing in possible war duties and other similar work, the system 
should as soon as practicable be carried into the primary or 
grammar (grade) schools in both town and country. 

Sufficient encouragement should be given to cause this 
to be done in practically every school. 

Probably the method outlined below would furnish ample 
encouragement . 

1. REQUIREMENTS. 

All such schools receiving "aid" under this plan should 
be required to maintain school twelve months of 28 days (24 
week-days and 4 Sundays) each throughout the year, to give 
to all pupils continuously health-instruction and supervision, 
physical instruction and supennsion of play, moral instruction, 
agricultural instruction (mostly practical), musical instruction; 
and such special instruction for advanced pupils as the United 
States Department of Agriculture and the United States De- 
partment of Education should require. 

Also all pupils should receive instruction in marching. 



89 

military calisthenics, etc. And probably after reaching, say, 
the sixth grade, all boys should be given instruction for, say, 
one-half hour per day, five days per week, in handling light 
arms, encampment, woodcraft, etc., and such additional train- 
ing in camp and target practice as the War and Navy Depart- 
ments shall agree upon and prescribe. This instruction should 
also be mostly practical. 

And all girls should receive a similar complementary 
course, but without arms, or substituting wand's therefor. 

Those pupils who are, for any reason, physically incapable 
should be given special training suitable to their condition. 
This should also apply to "aided" high schools and colleges. 

2. BUILDINGS, GROUNDS, ETC. 

These should be made ample and of the best. 

To all these schools which fulfill the above-mentioned re- 
quirements, the United States should render "aid" to the ex- 
tent of, say, one-half the cost of suitable, approved buildings 
and grounds. The latter should always include beautiful 
school-grounds, ample play and exercise grounds and suitable 
plots for practical agriculture. 

3. MILITARY INSTRUCTORS. 

The' United States should furnish, free of cost, to each 
of these schools one Instructor in Military and' Physical Train- 
ing, Discipline and Morale for every one hundred pupils or 
fi action thereof. Such instructors should be, whenever 
practicable, "aided" graduates from the high schools and col- 
leges. Also in towns of, say, ten thousand or more inhabi- 
tants, one or more Amiy or Navy officers should be detailed 
as supervisors of the military instruction. These should, of 
course, be "extra" officers. 

In the matter of the many small country schools which 
employ only one or two teachers, efforts should be made to 
consolidate these into larger districts as soon as road condi- 
tions can be made to permit. Until then, the United States 
should pay a part, say, one-half or one-third, of the salary 
of the head-teacher, provided one is employed who is compe- 
tent to give required instruction in Military and Physical 
Training, Discipline and Morale, and provided that he does 
so. 

The salaries of all the teachers in all "aided" schools 
should be at or above a prescribed minimum. This minimum 
scale of prices should be that prescribed by the United States 
authorities as previously outlined, and should be sufficient to 
repay the instructor for the expense of having prepared for 
teaching, and to make possible further needed preparation and 



90 

training in the profession, as well as to furnish a reasonably 
high standard of living and to pennit the raising and educa- 
tion of a family and enable a reasonable amount of savings to 
be made. 

4. ARMS, EQUIPMENTS, CAMP EQUIPAGE, ETC. 

The United States should furnish free also suitable arms 
(for boys) wands (for girls) and needed equipments, camp 
equipage, etc. And should also pay, say, not exceeding $15.00 
per year per pupil towards furnishing suitable uniforms or 
costumes for all pupils, provided the state or local authorities 
shall furnish a like amount. 

5. ADDITIONAL AID— FINANCIAL. 

The United States should pay to each of these gi^ade 
schools which fulfills the prescribed conditions not to exce^ed, 
say, ^10.00 per year for each pupil attending at least nine- 
tenths of the school days (i.e. attending at least 216 days> 
the preceding j^ear — these funds to be used exclusively to as- 
sist in the maintenance of the school at a standard which 
shall be satisfactory to the United States authorities, includ- 
ing the War and Navy Departments. 

Double the above-mentioned amount should be paid in 
those states which, by law, succeed in bringing at least four- 
fifths of their common school pupils under instruction in 
schools fulfilling the requirements of this section. 

6. AID TO INDIVIDUAL PUPILS. 

A proper bureau should be established by tlie United 
States, with competent agents in every community-center to 
lojk after and aid' indigent children of school age. 

So far as practicable, no child of school age should be or 
remain an inhabitant of a so-called "children's home." If 
any necessarily do so reside they should attend the public 
school, and not a separate one. unless they are ''incorrio-ibles" 
and hence have to be compelled to attend "reform school . " 

If a child is an orphan and without a home with near 
relatives, every effoi-t should be made to secure its outright 
adoption by worthy persons. Failing this, the United States 
bureau should, jointly with a local committee selected for that 
pu]pose, secure a home for the child in some worthy and 
suitable family by payment of a monthly sum. This amount 
should be graded from, say, $10.00 per month for the six- 
• e?.r-old to, say, $20.00 per month for the eighth-grade child. 
Frequent and adequate inspections should insure the quality 
of the home provided. 

In case a child's parent or parents are so poor as to be 
unable to provide proper food and shelter, and such addib'oiial 
clothing as is not provided for herein, the bureau, assisted 
by the local committee, should endeavor to obtain employment 



91 

for the parent or parents. If this is impracticable because of 
invahdism, or for any other reason, as a last resort, actual 
money-aid in sufficient amount should be given — preferably 
one-half by the General Government and the other half by 
the state or local authorities. 

Only in the most extreme cases, and when it is clearly 
the fault of the parent, should child and parent be separated. 

In all cases the child should be properly provided for and 
should attend school. None should be left out. 



SECTION FOUR. 
INSPECTIONS. 

Of course this system could not be successfully operated 
except under the strictest and most c?.reful supervision. Such 
supervision of the civil and agricultural departments of all 
these "aided" and' "approved" schools should be made as need- 
ed by the United States Departments of Education and Agri- 
culture respectively. 

Supervision of the preservation of health of all students 
and pupils, as well as the supervision of the teaching of that 
subject, should be under the joint direction of the Surgeon- 
General of the Army, the Surgeon-General of the Navy and 
the head of the Public Health Service of the United States. 

Ordinarily the inspections made by both civil and militarj^ 
inspectors should include these subjects; and their reports 
regarding same should be sent, through the heads of their 
respective departments, to each of the three medical authori- 
ties mentioned above. 

Whenever special need arises, further inspections might 
be made, by the direction of the President of the United 
States, under the joint supervision of the three aforemention- 
ed health authorities . 

Inspections of the department of Military and Physical 
Training, Discipline and Morale, should be made by officers 
detailed therefor from the Army and the Navy. They also 
should be ''extra" officers. 

These inspectors should pay particular attention to see- 
ing that ail requirements are being fulfilled in spirit as well 
as in the letter. Also that the United States are getting 
"value received" for the "aids" being furnished. 



92 

1. MILrrARY INSPECTIONS OF UNIVERSITIES, COL- 
LEGES AND HIGH SCHOOLS. 

Each of these should be inspected five times per year — 
once for a period extendin,^ over not less than two days dur- 
ino' each quarter, and once for a period of at least one week 
during the annual encampments. 

2. MILITARY INSPECTIONS OF COMMON OR GRADE 
SCHOOLS. 

These inspections should also be made by officers ("extra" 
officers) detailed by the War and Navy Departments. They 
should be sufficiently frequent and thorough to make sure that 
all requirements are being conscientiously fulfilled. 



CHAPTER VI. 
OBSERVATIONS AND ARGUMENTS. 



Humanity poked along for several thousand years using 
transportation systems, for instance, that now seem ridiculous- 
ly absuixl to all the inhabitants of civilized nations. Likewise 
other material, mechanical and scientific advancements have 
been rapid and enormous during these last one hundred years. 

But in that greatest and highest of all human occupa- 
tions — the training of youth — even the most highly civilized 
peoples are, in great part, still merely "poking along." In 
every country thousands upon thousands remain almost entire- 
ly untrained, and a large majority of the population are in- 
adequately trained. Does it have to be so? It does not. 
Comparatively few children are bom into the world who are 
not capable of a high degree of physical, mental and moral 
development. And the wherewithals to give these are here 
with us, right at hand. Strange that so many should be left 
practically without training, aye, even many given or allowed 
to receive evil and pernicious training! And strange also that 
the training given to nearly all should be so wofully inade- 
quate in one or more respects! 

"You cannot change Human Nature" — Not true. You can 
make almost any change in almost any human being by 
Training, if y9u will take the subject young enough and go 
about it in an efficient manner. 

Men and women are mostly what they are because of the 
training (good or bad) which they have received — especially 
that received in youth. Heredity limits and affects their 
powers and possibilities greatly, but not nearly as much as 
their environment and training. 

But to train a person to be what you want him to be you 
must "catch him young." He cannot learn much nor quickly 
after he is "old and set in his ways." 

A republic cannot be operated successfully by an ignorant 
and illiterate population. Ignorance and political equality can- 
not go hand in hand. They are absolutely incompatible. 
This is an axiom. 

A would-be republic that allows its population to be or 
become ignorant or illiterate is bound to fail. And in jubt 
so far as it allows its people to fall below a proper standard 



94 

of training and education, just that far does it fall below the 
true ideal of a republic. 

Is it not time we made strenuous efforts to remedy this 
condition of affairs in our country? 

Man has somehow "muddled through" to a little civil and 
religous liberty in a few countries. But it is not yet of very 
high quality, and no country, not even ours, is very secure 
in the possession thereof. The reason is perfectly clear. 
It is because of the vast number of us who are untrained in 
the appreciation of our hard-won blessings, untrained in the 
art and science of living, and untrained in how to hold on to 
the worth-wi-ile thin,gs, how to cultivate and nourish them 
and how to secure their continuance with us. 

We, even we, the people of the United States of America 
shall not survive as a nation, for we shall not desei-ve to dc 
so. if we do not wake up and seize and adhiinister propei 
remedies for our illiteracy and lack of training. Neitlier 
shall we, nor any of us, have all the blessings and happiness, 
individually, that may well be ours if we do not go at it and 
do the right thing in this matter. It may seem to be a 
matter of small or no concem to you that this or that or the 
other wrong or evil thing is going on somewhere over in the 
next sta^e or in the next county or even in the next-door fam- 
ily. But it is not. Your life and mine and the lives of 
every one of us are affected by the doings and the standards 
of living of all the others. We cannot escape it and it af- 
fects us whether we know it and realize it or not. 

Are you better off or worse off because there are five and 
a half millions in your country over ten years of age who 
cannot read and write? Are you better or worse off because 
one-fourth of our people are so poorly ed-^^'.ated and so poorly 
trained that they do not measure up to the eighth grade? 

Are you better or worse off because the physical training 
and the health education of our youth has been so poor that 
fully one-fourth of our people must be classed as physically 
unfit, and many, many m.ore are, in some respect, physically 
deficient? And are you better or worse off because the ethical 
and moral training of a large percentage of our youth has 
been so lacking or so wrong that we have to keep some 82,- 
000 of our people confined for the protection of the rest, and 
that there are besides many others at large who are really 
a menace to person and property? Are you made happier 
or more miserable because the ethical and moral training, or 
lack of it, which your contemporaries have received has been 
such that you find yourself and your loved ones continually 



95 

menaced, not only by outright criminals, but by the cheat, 
the liar and the "crook" in business of all kinds? 

If there is a remedy and a cure foi- these thin,gs, do you 
not want to see it found and applied to your benefit and mine 
and the benefit of all the people of our country? 

There is such a remedy, a thorough one ; and it is simply 
nothing more nor less than the proper and efficient training 
of our young people. 

It is believed that the system herein proposed will be a 
long step in the direction of accomplishing this. 

1. SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 

Whatever may have occurred before, it seems pretty cer- 
tain that we humans have been evolving to higher and higher 
planes since the days of the cave-man. Bn.ite force has be- 
come less and less puissant while reason and ethical consider- 
ations have continued to gain ascendancy. Much of our pro- 
gress has had to be fought for — physically and bitterly; foi', 
more often than not, reason and right ideas have not beei 
the determining factors, as to which side of a question men 
shall take, nor even in the establishment of the Right. But 
as time has gone on, reason and ethical considerations have 
become stronger and stronger factoi's. Oftentimes the es- 
tablishment of the Right or the crushing of the Wrong has 
had to be done by brute force. This was so on the greatest 
scale in 1914-1918. Some phase of it is taking place some- 
where every day. It will probably continue to be necessary 
in many cases for the Right to be established by force for a 
long time to come. Even the Lord. Himself, had to resort 
to it when He found the evil ones defiling the temple. 

Sometimes it has almost seemed th?t the only way to 
establish any right thing is by bnite force. But the human 
being has been growing in the power of using his reason and 
his ethical sense until these have become more povrerful in 
many cases, at least, than mere brute force. There was a 
time when the greatest Reformer that the world ever saw 
was hanged upon a tree; and it might be done again if He 
came back to us now. I am not sure. Many certainly would 
wish to do so. We are only a little ways removed from that 
time yet. But it is clear that not every refoiTn, great and 
small, has to fight physically its way to the front, as it did 
in the days of the cave-man, or as it does even today among 
savages. Reason and ethical considerations have more weight 
than they did. Witness the abolition of alcohol, and the 
granting of civic rights to women, taking place peacefully 
right before our eyes today. 

Let us not, then, despair of gaining another great bless- 
ing without the use of physical force. Has not man in the 



96 

United States of America, reached a standard of mental and 
ethical development where, if it be properly presented to him, 
he will adopt and make use of the very greatest blessing- that 
could possibly be opened to him at this time — namely the 
establishment and operation of a proper and really efficient 
system of training for all the boys and girls in the land? 

I have tried to tell you what little I know about it; and 
I want to ask you, one and all, to push the good work along. 
Talk it. Write it. Preach it. Legislate it into existence. 
And give of your time and of your substance to it unstintedly. 
For it is the most important question — the all-important ques- 
tion before our country today. Upon it and upon a right so- 
lution of it depend our very life, our continued existence as a 
nation, and the individual prosperity and happiness of all our 
people. Without it we cannot use intelligently and efficiently 
the wondrous gifts that God has bestowed upon us. 

'Train up a child in the way he should go; and when 
he is old, he will not depart from it." 
Prov. 22 6. 

Have we not been reading this lesson a long, long time? 
And have we not learned it very, very poorly, as yet? 

When one walks through the city, especially through the 
disgracefully squalid sections thereof, and observes the things 
going on there, the low standards of living, physical, mental 
and moral, the marks of vice and degradation upon the very 
countenances of the men. women and even the children ; when 
one sees how many pick-pockets, crooks and scarlet women 
there are ; and when one rem.embers that every one of these 
was once a little child, and capable, in nearly every case, of 
being so trained as to become a good, wise and useful citizen, 
does it not look as if it were time for us to begin to put 
such training in the reach of every child? Aye, is it not 
even time to so place and position each ^hild that he cannot 
escape this training "in the way he should go"? 

And go visit our jails and penitentiaries. Observe the 
eighty-two thousand members of the "underworld" therein 
confined. And remember that the reason why most of them 
are there is because of a lack of proper training in their 
youth-time. There are exceptions, of course, due to heredity 
or other more or less obscure causes ; but they are comparative- 
ly few. The great majority of "bad" people on Earth today 
are bad because they did not receive proper training in their 
youth. And this is our business — yours and mine; and, if 
there is a remedy for it, we ought to go about finding it and 
applying it. For these are a great drain upon the state and 
their "pidl-back" is a great economic loss to the community. 
Also, it is hard for the rest of us to be really happy while such 



97 

conditions exist. They cast upon all a gloom like a curtain 
of cloud by day and a curtain of darkness by night. 

More than a hundred children are being born in our 
borders today and every day who are going to become criminals 
unless we improve right speedily our system of child-training. 
Thousands are being bom every day who are destined to be 
and to remain throughout life incapables and inefficients for 
the same reason. 

And it can be improved in one generation, even to the 
point where at least ninety of the hundred criminals, and at 
least nine-tenths of the incapables and inefficients can be made 
into happy, bright-eyed, useful citizens instead of the dour, 
distrustful, devilsh criminals, and the sad and low-living un- 
fortunates that they, at present, are otherwise destined to 
become . 

It has been given to me to tell you a little bit of the how 
to begin to give this needed training to all the children of 
our land . 

Think of it. The very babe at your own knee — no mat- 
ter who you are — may be one of those destined (as things 
now are) to receive the faulty training that shall make him 
(or worse still, her) one of the submerged of the underworld! 
And even though he escape that, his standard of living and 
the amount of happiness, both material and spiritual, which 
he will get out of life is bound to be less than it would other- 
wise be, because of the contemporary existence of numerous 
criminals and other deficients who would not have been such 
had they only received proper and efficient training. 

I wish I could bring before you, each and every one, the 
vision I have of our people three generations after this sys- 
tem, and the improvements upon it that will come, shall have 
been adopted and put into operation. 

The changes for good that will take place during the first 
generation after the beginning of a really efficient system of 
training for our young people will be almost beyond the power 
of human imagination; and the benefits derived during the 
second generation will be even far greater. But it will take 
abcut three generations for the system to begin to function 
with full force, and to shower upon us, and through us upon 
fhe world, the big things that lie in it for our human race. 

I see these people of the United States of America trans- 
formed into a race that is almost universally splendidly ef- 
ficient physically, and therefore healthful, and therefore, beau- 
tiful, and therefore reveling gloriously in the happiness of 
really good living. 



98 

The awful woe of our present enormous, greatly unneces- 
sary physical deficiencies and sufferings will be almost elimi- 
nated . 

Our people will then go about wondering why we were 
so long blind to these things and to the obvious remedy — 
the training of youth. 

I see us then a people whose mentality has been nearly 
universally cultivated, and each individual trained and practiced 
in the job or jobs for which he or she is best fitted, and will 
most enjoy doing. 

Do not imagine that there is no joy in doing well the 
lowly tasks of life, if that is our job. There is; and all that 
is required to make it so is to put brains and training into 
it. 

The very reception of training itself is a pleasure and 
a joy when once we have habituated ourselves to it. 

This veiy day I spent several hours wbrking at the build- 
ing of a cellar — working in mud and rain — and have enjoyed 
every minute of it. I know. And right here, let me say 
again that I thank God that I live in a country already where 
I can engage in any useful, honest occupation without losing 
caste. This point of view would become nearly universal 
under a system of training such as this proposed herein. 

I see us a nation of individuals whose training has so 
shai-pened our moral perceptions and our sense of what is due 
to ourselves and our fellows that we shall nearly all refuse to 
stoop to the many base tricks, subterfuges, lies, cheatings and 
sharp practices that so nearly universally characterize most 
of our dealings .\\ith each other; a nation among whom crime 
has been reduced to a minimum — probably not one-tenth what 
it new is. Do I 5:ee a vast aggregation of people, nearly all 
of whom have learned that fighting, combat and" conflict are 
reaJly unnecessary, and should not exist? No, that is not de- 
sirable; neither is it the idea. Such a state of affairs is 
not for this world, and the world would not be worth living 
in if it \^ere so. But I do look forward to the time when a 
proper system of training shall have made us to know that 
much of the fighting, combat and conflict of us humans with 
each other is unnecessary, wrong, and not for our own or our 
fellows' well being; that combat and struggle with the powers 
of nature, in order to wrest from her the essentials for a high 
standard of living, offer nearly all the "fighting" we need, 
outside of that conflict which everyone of us must maintain 
within himself to keep himself right. And I look forward 
with joy in my heart to the time when training shall have 
taught neai'ly all of us that such conflicts as are necessary 



99 

between men had best be earned on honestly — without the 
awful mass of evil and unfairness that now so notoriously 
characterize many of our relations with each other — in short 
to the time when training- shall have made the Golden Rule a 
practical working system, as well as a beautiful theory. 

It is good. But it is not "too good to be true"; and it is 
your duty and mine to help bring it about. We can help — 
everyone of us — if we will. 

Let us do it. 

I see four other great things in store for us, after three 
generations of the operation of such a system as this: 

There will be comparatively little physical inefficiency and 
suffering, the witnessing of which is so saddening to all our 
lives , 

There will be much fewer mental delinquents and inef- 
ficients among our fellows to vex us. 

There will be nearly complete absence of that moral laxity 
and degeneracy which we find to exist now in greater or less 
degree in most of those with whom we meet and have dealings. 
A firm and abiding faith in the moral steadfastness of our 
neighbors will have become a reality. This shall make us be- 
lieve that we are bound for a worthy destiny, and shall make 
us willing to help each other to arrive. Human progress 
shall then really have begun. 

And the knowledge that these inheritances are to be not 
only ours but are to bless our posterity so long as the Earth 
exists will be a lasting well-spring of happiness in the human 
heart . 

Aye, and there is a fifth thing. This system will, of 
itself, lead to improvements upon itself higher and better than 
the human mind can now conceive. 

This vision goes ever onward and upward in my mind, 
and I know that it is true, though I have had only a Httle 
glimpse, as through a glass darkly ; and I have not command 
of language to tell you well even the little that I do see. 

Have you not seen enough to realize that the subject is 
well worth-while? 

There be many minds who, if they gave the subject the 
thought and attention it deserves, could produce big improve- 
ments on this plan, or might even bring forth a better one. 
If you are one of these, do it. You owe it to your fellow- 
man. 

Look here. Probably most of you, my readers, are be- 
lievers in and followers of the Man of Gallilee. And you look 
anxiously forward to the day of His return. Do you really 



100 

wish it and long for it to come? What sort of a state of 
affairs would He find the Earth in if He did come now? It 
seems to me it would be about like your most loved and honor- 
ed guest comin,g and finding your house in the greatest physi- 
cal, mental and moral disorder. 

Are you not in favor of and are you not going to work 
for a system of training that would make this world a fitter 
place for Him to return to? 

And do you think that He is likely to com.e, either in 
person or _spirit, until we humans have done, at least, a little 
bit of the" training of our young, which is the first thing to 
d'o towards setting our habitation in order for His reception? 

Let us go about serving the Lord in a practical way. I 
have tried to tell you a little bit of the how to do that. 



2. RESULTS AND COSTS COMPARED. 



"The cost of it! Just think of the enonnous cost of this 
proposed system of Education and Training! Absolutely im- 
possible!" I hear them exclaim. 

Yes, they told and wrote me that about the less-compre- 
hensive system of Military Training which I proposed in 1912. 
And since then, within the last few months, some of the most 
strenuous objectors thereto have come to me and said, in ef- 
fect, "Just think how much would have been saved if only your 
proposed system had been put into operation when you first 
advocated it! What a saving there would have been in lives 
and dollars too!" 

The plan I then proposed, which is practically the military 
part of that embodied herein, would have cost something like 
three-hundred millions of dollars per year; and we would have 
had in the training of our youth "value received" and more 
for every dollar of it, besides having occupied a position that 
would have made it absolutely impossible for the Great War 
to have touched us. We might even have been so just and 
powerful that the evil ones would not have dared to start the 
war at all. For it seems clear to my mind that the instiga- 
tors believed from the first that they would be able to make 
rich sind unprepared America pay for it. 

Now, we have spent thirty thousand millions of dollars, 
riiore than fifty thousand lives, made over two hundred thous- 
and cripples ; and what have we got for it ? Nothing at all, 



101 

except a greater calamity avoided — a calamity that would have 
been avoided anyhow by the expenditure of only about one- 
fourth as much per annum as the interest on the debt we 
have now piled up, if we had only started in time and acted 
upon the system then outlined. 

Nor have all our experiences and expenditures eliminated 
the danger. It will come again and again unless we yet 
adopt and put into operation this or some similar system of 
training for the National Defense, 

Nor is the civilian part of this proposed system of train- 
ing one whit less important than the military part thereof. 
To be really efficient and successful, they are indissolubly 
bound up together. > 

I am asking for the American People something that will 
cost much — several times thi-ee hundred' million dollars per year 
now, probably. But it is because reason, study, obsei*vation 
and practice have convinced me that it will be worth much — 
many times all it can possibly cost. I shall not be content 
with any petty half-measures, and I ask my countrymen not 
to put up with any. Many such will be proposed and pressed 
forward by puny minds, unforeseeing intellects, little-educa- 
tionists, small-trainingists, and smaller politicians, who strive 
to win popularity by holding up their hands in "holy horror" 
at the "extravagance" of the plan. 

Great expenditures are not necessarily extravagant. They 

never are when the benefits returned are sure to be much 

greater than the output. It is parsimony not to spend great- 
ly when great expenditures are really needed. 

What would any reasonable person think of a big firm 
that refused to make big expenditures in the operation of its 
business when the not making them would be certain to cause 
that firm a loss of several times as much? That is just 
exactly the stand which the "little-educationists" and "small- 
trainingists" will be advocating for the United States of 
America . 

And there will be those — large numbers of them — faint- 
hearted ones who will declare that it will never be possible to 
get the people of our country to consent to the expenditure 
of such sums, no matter how great the need, nor how advan- 
tageous such expenditures might ^.ctually be. They defame 
the American People. Our citizenry have demonstrated time 
and again that they will expend any needed sum freely and 
gladly, once the need is made clear to them. 

The American is busy. He has not the time to go into 



102 

each and every big question and solve it for himself alone. 
It thus becomes the duty of every one of us who know a lit- 
tle about this subject of training to use every legitimate means 
possible to bring the knowledge of its needs and sure results 
to our fellow-citizens. 

And there will be those who will lie about this proposed 
system and about its cost — some because they love to lie, and 
others because of real or imagined personal advantages to be 
gained thereby. 

Some of those will sneer that it is Paternalism. Yes, it 
is paternalism — of the very finest kind. But the way these 
will say it will be a lie, just the same. 

It is paternalism; and it wlil bring about the grandest 
condition of paternalism among our people that the wisest and 
best human minds have ever dreamed of. It will give to 
practically all of our people full faith and confidence in the 
physical, mental and moral steadfastness of their fellows. 

And because it will do this, some of the liars will declare 
that it will lead to Bolshevism, Communism, I.W.W.-ism and 
all sorts of other evils ; when any right-reasoning person must 
see more and more clearly, the longer and' deeper he studies 
the subject, that what it will do will be to sound the death- 
knell of eveiy single one of these vipers-of-isms that are rear- 
ing their heads through the ignorance and illiteracy and vice 
produced by the past and present deficiencies of education and 
training . 

There be thousands who, for their o^\^l selfish ends, say 
that black is white and vice versa; and many of these succeed 
in getting themselves believed. Beware! Be not deceived! 
Let not such persuade you that this cup of nectar waiting 
only for us Americans to quaff it is poison ! Neither allow 
them to put poison into it, nor to induce you to take only a 
small dose of training for our youth because of the enomious 
cost of it. 

If you and several members of your family were sick and 
the ©nly cure for your ailment was a medicine that would cost 
:i large portion, or even all of your fortune, would' you not 
procure the medicine? Especially would you not do so if that 
medicine was sure to so reanimate you that you would find it 
easy to make another and greater fortune right quickly? 

That is just what a proper system of training our youth 
will do for the United States. It will cost enormous sums. 
But it will increase our eaiTiing capacity as a nation and as 



103 

individuals several times — probably as much as ten or twelve 
times what the entire system will be costing us. 

Suppose you had an income of, say, $4,000.00 per year, 
and you used as much as even half of it in such a way as to 
make it bring- in some ten or twenty thousand dollars per year. 
Would that be good business or would it not? 

The United States Government has an income of some 
billions ; and by expending somewhere in the neighborhood of 
one-fourth of it upon a proper system of training for our 
youth, it would soon easily be collecting, if needed, an income 
double that at present flowing into the coffers, and still be 
leaving some nine-tenths of the resulting profits in the hands 
of the people. 

Let us not get scared' at big costs about this thing until 
we look on the other side of the ledger and see how much 
bigger the returns are. 

The cost! I say that no matter what it will cost, we 
shall get back many times "value received"; and it will cost 
us far less to adopt it than it will to drag along without it. 

I pray God that this may be seen, realized and" acted upon 
before igriorance, illiteracy, inefficiency and lack of training 
of its citizens topples over the Great Republic. 



LEGISLATION. 



Some mighty good laws in regard to Militaiy, Agricultural 
and Mechanic Ai-ts Training are already in existence in the 
United States code, and also in those of many of the indi- 
vidual states. But none of them go far enough, and they 
are too parsimonious too produce anything like all the benefits 
possible . 

The Morrell Acts and the establishment of the Reserve 
Officers' Training Coi-ps are big steps in the right direction. 
This is also true of various beginnings made in several of the 
states. But these are all only a beginning and must be great- 
ly enlarged upon before the goal will be even in sight. 

This subject needs constructive legislation of the very 
highest order. And it' must be generous. No penny-wise, 
pound-foolish policy will suffice here. It must not be pei-mit- 
ted that less of both material help to institutions and personal 
assistance to students than is required for a full fruition be 



104 

given by our people and by their representatives — our legisla- 
tors . 

It is not believed that the legislation here proposed is 
even a model. Such laws must be produced by the best ef- 
forts and deepest study of many minds. What it is intended 
to do is merely to erect sign-posts pointing the way and to 
bring forth something definite as a working basis. Also to 
interest those who should be interested — and that means every- 
body. 



A. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR UNITED STATES 
AID. 



The laws providing for the furnishing of government "aid" 
to institutions and individual pupils and students should set 
forth clearly what such "aids" shall be and the exact conditions 
under which they will be given. 

As previously stated, these "aids" should be so generous 
as to induce practically all state schools and colleges to be 
glad to accept the requirements in order to receive the con- 
comitant benefits. 

a. An "aided" school should be a state institution, and 
therefore capable of receiving substantial reciprocal aid from 
the state in certain particulars. No sectarian or strictly pri- 
vate institution could come under this head. 

b. The pay of all teachers should be not less than that 
set forth in a minimum scale prescribed by United States 
authority . 

c. The school-yel^r in all "aided" institutions and schools 
vshould be twelve school-months of twenty-eight days (24 week 
days and 4 Sundays) each. 

d. Health supervision and suitable instruction in health 
preservation for all pupils and students throughout the courses 
m all departments should be required. 

e. Military and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale, 
for all men and boy pupils and students, and suitable comple- 
mentary courses for women and girl pupils and students, 
should be a requirement in practically all courses and grades. 

f. There should be a cessation of "aid" whenever these 
requirements or any essential part of them cease to be met. 



105 

B. REQUIREMENTS FOR "AID" TO COLLEGES AND UNI- 
VERSITIES. 

These should, of course, comply with all the general re- 
quirements, mentioned in A above and: 

a. Should maintain and carry on four-year courses in 
Academic work (College of Arts and Science) or Agriculture 
(including Domestic Science or Home Economics for women 
students) and Mechanic Arts (Engineering) or Teachers' Col- 
lege (Department of Education) all open to all qualified stu- 
dents, free of tuition. 

Also maintain courses in other professional and scientific 
subjects, with or without tuition. 

b. Should fulfill the general requirement regarding Mili- 
taiy and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale, by requiring 
all men students to be given that subject for one hour per day 
five days per week (at least three-fifths of the work to be 
practical) . Also one inspection or other ceremony on Satur- 
days, and one muster and inspection at the end of each school 
month. This training to continue throughout all four-year 
students' courses. Also encampments, of not less than two 
nor more than four weeks duration, for training pui-poses and 
target-practice, to be held at times prescribed by the War and 
Navy Departments, respectively, each year; and no student to 
be graduated in any four-year course without having attended! 
at least two full encampments. 

Also all women students to be given a suitable comple- 
mentary course, occupying the same amount of time, and as 
nearly similar as practicable in all respects; but women stu- 
dents should be encamped separately and should not be re- 
quired to bear arms. 

No degree should be given, ordinarily, for any less amount 
of work than a regular four-year course. 



C. "AIDS" TO BE GIVEN BY THE UNITED STATES. 

In general our people take too little interest in questions 

that come up before- the National Government for solution. 

As a consequence when the really big and important questions 

come up, our entire body of citizens are found more or less 

i"at sea." These "aids" should and would bring the people and 



106 

the o'ovemment more closely in touch with each other — would 
cause our people, every one, to realize that the National Gov- 
ernment takes an interest in them and their welfare — that it 
actually means something- to them, and is giving "value receiv- 
ed" for what it costs. 

These "aids" should be: 



a. "Aids" Common to All "Aided" Institutions and Schools. 

i. The United States should furnish all necessary arms 
for dnll, arms and ammunition for target-practice; military 
equipments ; camp equipage ; militaiy unifoiTns for men and 
boys and corresponding costumes for women and girl students 
and pupils. 

ii. The United States should also furnish Instinictors in 
Military and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale — Araiy 
and Navy officers as Supervising Instructors and Inspectors, 
and "aided" and "obligated" graduates of "aided" schools as 
Instructors and Assistant Instructors. One-half only of the 
salaries of the latter should be paid by the General Govern- 
ment, the rest by the state or state and community. 

"Aided" and "obligated" women g"raduates should also be 
similarly supplied for the instruction of girl and women stu- 
dents and pupils in their Military and Physical Training, Dis- 
cipline and Morale . 



b. *'Aids" to be Given to Colleges and Universities. 

The cultivation of the mind by a really good and efficient 
course of college training will enable anyone to do his work 
better, no matter what may be his calling in life; and other 
things being equal, he is a better citizen of the republic who 
has cultivated his qualities and reasoning powers by such a 
course . 

Also the friendships and associations formed in college 
make largely for success and happiness to the individual all 
during the time that we pass this way. 

But the number of people who receive college training has 
been so comparatively small that these fonn almost a clique, 
separate and apai't from the rest of mankind. So marked is 
this that, heretofore, it has been considered that only those 
entering certain callings need a "college education," and that 
the person who works with hands as well as brain has no use 



107 

for it. This is a fallacy. Any job can be better performed 
by "putting brains into it" — trained brains. 

As a state exists for the benefit of all its individuals, s« 
laws should be passed fostering real, beneficial and efficient 
college training for as many of its citizens as practicable. 

These laws should provide: 

i. For continuation of the aids already in operation by 
the- Morrell Acts, etc., and for their extension in amount, and 
to other state institutions, such as the Teachers' Colleges, etc 

ii. For personal inducements for attendance at state 
■''aided" institutions by "appointments" with pay, to the Agri- 
cultural Department, Teachers' College, and all other courses 
in the state universities and other state colleges qualified to 
receive such "aid" — all appointees to assume corresponding 
obligations . 

iii. For free barracks and dormitories for practically all 
cadets and cadettes, whether "appointed" or not. 

iv. For loans to worthy, but financially poor students 
by the United States, canying corresponding obligations of 
service as teachers similar to those of "appointees," and also 
obligations of repayment of the loans with interest. 

v. Maintenance, improvement and the establishment, 
where not already existent, of Reserve Officers' Training Corps 
units . 

vi. The establishment and maintenance of a "Reserve 
Women's Training Coips" for women students, along lines sim- 
ilar to the Reserve Officers' Training Coi-ps for men students. 



D. REQUIREMENTS FOR "AID" TO HIGH SCHOOLS. 

a. High schools as well as all other schools receiving 
"aid"' should fulfill substantially and in good faith all general 
and special requirements. Otherwise such "aid" should be 
withdrawn . 

b. They should maintain and carry on four-year courses 
for all resident pupils of high school age — thirteen to twenty. 

Tuition should be free. 

c. All pupils attending should be given a full, four-year, 
approved course in practical and thoeretical agriculture. 

d. All boy pupils should be given a full, approved course 
in manual training, and all girl pupils should be given a corres- 
ponding course in domestic science or home economics. 

e. All boy pupils should receive the approved, full, four- 
year course in Military and Physical Training, Discipline and 



108 

Morale; and all girl pupils a corresponding complementary- 
course suitable to them. 

f . All pupils should be given approved health supervision 
at all times; and an approved full, four-year course in health 
preservation . 

g. Practically all resident pupils of high school qualifica- 
tions should be required to attend until graduated or married, 
or until the age of twenty is reached. 

h. They should give approved curricula, graduation from 
any one of which would be sufficient to admit to college or 
university or other "aided" institution of that class. 

i. The state and community should be required to do 
their part — at least one-half — in supplying suitable buildings, 
beautiful school grounds, ?mple play and exercise grounds and 
right plots for instruction in practical agriculture. 

j . Teachers' vacatiovis and time for their professional im- 
provement, mentioned in paragraph 9, Section Two of Chapter 
V, General Plan, should be provided for under approved regu- 
lations . 

k. Service in the "Reserves" after graduation from "aid- 
ed" high schools must be obligatory upon all pupils at option 
of the United States. 



E. "AIDS" TO BE GIVEN TO HIGH SCHOOLS. 



There be people who do not "believe in" higher educa- 
tion. Not long ago the governor of a great state said that 
too manv people were running "hog-wild" over higher educa- 
tion. He did not last long. There be people who do not "be- 
live in" free public schools even. One very prominent man told 
me several years ago that he and many others did not. Later 
he was a candidate for governor of his state . He did not even 
get the nomination. 

But we have been mighty slow to see that the child is 
not capable of deciding for himself whether or not he or she 
vshould attend the primary public school; and still slower of 
realizing that oftentimes the parent is just as incapable of 
deciding the question aright. But slowest of all have we been 
in coming to the knowledge of the fact that practically every 



109 

child in the land ought to be given and required to receive, at 
least, a full four-year high school course. Indeed, that is a 
truth that is almost entirely unrealized as yet throughout the 
length and breadth of our land. The realization of it will 
work wonders for this republic, and make its people the hap- 
piest and most glorious race upon the face of the Earth. 

As a step in the realization of this condition, high schools 
which fulfill the required conditions, should receive legislative 
aids, such as: 

a. Those common to all "aided" institutions, mentioned 
in C above. 

b. Cash assistance in maintenance by the United States, 
mentioned in paragraph 3, Section Two of Chapter V. Out- 
line of General Plan. 

c. Additional "appointments" of selected high school 
graduate pupils, with pay and corresponding obUgations, set 
forth in paragraph 7, Section Two of Chapter V. Outline of 
General Plan. 

d. Individual financial assistance to selected pupils, with 
corresponding obligations. Paragraph 7, Section Two of 
Chapter V. Outline of General Plan. 

e. Individual assistance to indigent pupils, and the cor- 
responding obligations. Also provided in paragraph 7, Section 
Two of Chapter V. Outline of General Plan. 

f. Universal instruction in all "aided" high schools in 
Military and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale, by the 
continuation and expansion of and the establishment and main- 
tenance of Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Units for 
high school boys. 

g. The establishment and maintenance of similar Junior 
Reserve Women's Training Coi-p§ Units for high school girls. 



F. REQUIREMENTS FOR "AID" TO PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

It seems that two things should be patent to every citizen 
of the republic by this time. First, that every boy and girl 
should receive the full course of training in the common or 
primary school. Second, that these schools, ahnost every- 
where, should be increased in efficiency of work done and kinds 
of instruction given. 



110 

To these ends the following requirements for "aids" should 
be exacted of them: 

a. They should substantially, and in good spirit as well 
as in letter, fulfill all general requirements as set forth in A. 
General Requirements for United States Aid, above. 

b. Health supervision, and the teaching of the rudiments 
cf health preservation to all pupils should be inaugurated and 
should continue throughout the course. 

c. They should give a course extending over a period* 
of at least eight years, and its scope should be such that its 
successful completion would be sufficient to admit the pupil to 
high school . 

d. It should be required by local or state laws that prac- 
tically all resident children between the ages of six and twenty 
must attend until the course is successfully completed, or un- 
til the pupil is married. 

Tuition should be free for all resident pupils. 

e. They should require all boy pupils to take the course 
prescribed by the United States in Military and Physical Train- 
ing, Discipline and Morale, and the corresponding suitable com- 
plement for girls. 

f. They should require all pupils to take the prescribed 
eight-year course in elementary agriculture (mostly practical). 

g. The state, or state and community should do their 
part — at least one-half — in supplying suitable buildings and 
apparatus, beautifying school grounds and in furnishing and 
equipping ample play and exercise grounds and suitable, ample 
plots for instruction in practical agriculture. 



G. "AIDS" TO BE GIVEN PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

To all those primary schools which meet the above-men- 
tioned requirements, the following "aids" should be given: 

a. All those general "aids" mentioned in C. Aids to be 
Given by the United States, above. 

b. Financial "aid" for assistance in maintenance, men- 
tioned in paragraph 5, Section Three of Chapter V. Outline 
of General Plan. 

The doubling of the amount of the same in certain schools, 
as therein provided. 

c. The provision of homes and financial help for orphans 
and indigent children of school age. See paragraph 6, Section 
Three of Chapter V. Outhne of General Plan. 



Ill 

H. "APPROVED" COLLEGES AND "APPPvOVED" SCHOOLS 
OF "JUNIOPv COLLEGE" AND HIGH SCHOOL GRADES. 

By an "approved" school, as distinguished from an "aid- 
ed" one is meant those sectarian or private institutions which 
do not and could not, or at least should not receive direct 
financial aid either from the state or the United States. Re- 
ligion is free and unhampered in our country and should re- 
main so — neither let nor hindered. And, of course, public 
school funds should not be expended in furtherance of private 
enterprises, whether these be schools or what not. 

But many of these institutions undoubtedly do exercise 
an important function in our educational system, as at present 
constituted; and" many, especially those colleges and "junior 
colleges" which combine religious and secular instruction, prob- 
ably always will. It would be a decided advantage to the 
country and to the students themselves to have instruction in 
Military and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale, given 
to the students of these institutions. Therefore, it w^ould be 
wise to supply certain indirect assistances in this direction, 
upon fulfillment by the institutions themselves, of certain de- 
,sirable requirements . 

So, also with private colleges, even those run for profit, 
and even, as yet, with certain private schools of high school 
grade, though the snobbery and other evils which all classes 
of private schools often foster go far to counterbalance their 
usefulness. Those, at least, which are extremelv objectionable 
will probably disappear under a really efficient system of gov- 
ernment "aided" free schools. 

However, we still have them, and it is desirable that they 
also should be induced to give their pupils courses of instruc- 
tion in Military and Physical Training, Discipline and' Morale. 

a. The "requirements," in general, should be similar to 
those of like grade in "aided" schools, except as to free tuition. 

b. "Assistances" or indirect "aids" given to such institu- 
tions should conform, in general, to those given to "aided" in- 
stitutions of similar grade in so far only as: 

i. The supplying by the United States of all necessary 
arms for drill, and arms and ammunition for target-practicCf 
the supplying of necessary military equipments, camp equipage 
and uniforms . 

ii. The detail of Army and Navy officers as supervising 



112 

Instructors in Military and Physical Training-, Discipline and 
Morale; and the payment of one-half the approved salaries of 
their necessary "aided" graduate assistant instructors; and, 
similarly, one-half the salaries of necessary "aided" gi'aduate 
women instructors and assistant instructors in the same de- 
partment. Also the detail of the necessary number of en- 
listed men as clerical assistants to Army and Navy officers on 
duty with the institutions, and as care-takers of g"ovemment 
propertv therein , 

Also the detail of Army and Navy officers for the dlity of 
making required inspections . 

iii. The establishment, where not already existent, and 
maintenance of Reserve Officers' Training Corps Units and Jun- 
ior Units of the same. The Senior Units should be confined 
to institutions of College grade and "Junior College" (that is 
institutions giving two years of a college course) grade. But 
only the first two years of the "Senior Unit Course" should be 
permitted to be taken in a "Junior College." 

iv. The establishment and maintenance, similarly, of 
Senior and Junior Units of a "Reserve Women's Training 
Corps . " 



INSPECTIONS, 



The same laws that provide "aids" and assistances to 
schools should provide for a system of frequent and rigid in- 
spections. This plan for education and training would be of 
little value unless the schools and individuals receiving "aids" 
were made to live up to their duties in good faith. 

The inspections here referred to are only those of the de- 
partment of Military and Physical Training, Discipline and 
Morale. Those of the Agricultural department should be su- 
pervised by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and those 
regarding general education by the U. S. Commissioner of 
Education (at least until the cabinet office of Secretary of Edu- 
cation is established) . 

The inspections of "aided" and "approved" schools of like 
grade should be the same and similarly made. 

Inspections of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, as 
made at present, are all very well, as far as they go; but they 



113 

do not occur frequently enough, nor does the inspector have 
opportunity to see the units at their daily work as should be 
the case. 

An increase in the frequency and the length of time de- 
voted to inspections should constitute a prominent part of the 
expansion and extension of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps 
and the (not yet established) Resei-ve Women's Training Corps. 

Legislation should provide: 

a. For the inspection of universities, colleges, junior col- 
leges and high schools and institutions of like grade by spe- 
cially qualified officers of the Army and Navy, as set forth in 
paragraph 1, Section Four of Chapter V. Outline of General 
Plan. 

b. For inspection of common or grade schools, also by 
specinlly qualified officers of the Army and Navy as provided 
in paragraph 2, Section Four of Chapter V, Outline of Gen- 
eral Plan. 



J. LEGISLATION BY INDIVIDUAL STATES. 

A great many of the benefits of this system can be made 
to accrue to individual states by prompt state legislation, which 
may be enacted in advance of General Government action. 

That state which first takes advantage of this will find it- 
self forging ahead so rapidly that it will be a source of amaze- 
ment to all the others — and they will be bound to follow. 

Each state should promptly improve its public school sys- 
tem, increase salaries of teachers by adopting a minimum 
scale of adequate salaries, erect suitable buildings of ample 
capacity, supply needed equipment for teaching, beautify school 
grounds and provide ample play and exercise grounds and agri- 
cultural grounds for every high school and every common or 
grade school . 

Should make attendance at high school compulsory, as well 
as that at grade school if not already so. 

Should establish the twelve months school year in all 
state schools. 

Should require the teaching of Agriculture both theoreti- 
cal and practical in all grade and high schools. 

Should make the same requirement regarding manual 



114 

training for boys and home economics or domestic science for 
srirls . 

Should take measures for the health preservation of all 
pupils in both grade and high schools; and should provide for 
the teaching of that subject to all pupils. 

Should provide for and require the teaching of Military 
and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale, to all boys, and 
its suitable complement to all girls in high school, at least; 
and should supply the necessary unifonns for same until this 
is done by the General Government. 

Should also inaugurate a system of "appointments" with 
substantial pay — to be increased when the United States begins 
to share in the expense — and should require all eligible "ap- 
pointees" to be members of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps 
or of the Reserve Women's Training Coips (when it is estab- 
lished) . 

Should require all students in four-year courses at state- 
aided institutions to take a four-year course in Military and 
Physical Trainin,g, Discipline and Morale, or its corresponding 
complement, for women students. 

Should provide unifoiTns for these, where it is not done 
by the United States; and should make the same requirements 
of their students regarding entrance into the Reserve Officers' 
Training Coips and the Reserve Women's Training Coips (when 
one is established) as of "appointees". 

Should provide free barracks and doiTnitories for all cadets 
and cadettes of these institutions, whether "appointees" or 
not. Also should provide ample recreation and physical train- 
inig grounds, facilities and apparatus for all state colleges and 
suitable drill and camping grounds (two) for cadets and cadettes 
thereat . 

Should provide a system of loans for worthy poor gradu- 
ates of high school to attend college or university. 

Should institute a suitable system of tax levies for all 
these things and should make it big enough to furnish ail 
necessary funds for putting all these things into operation and 
for maintaining them. 

Note: There are no tax levies in the Fiji Islands. Per- 
haps some of the "little educationists" and "small-trainingists" 
would prefer to go there to live. They could be spared. 



115 

K. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP? 

Any sensible, thinking person is bound to admit that there 
is great need for improvement in the training of our youth. 
It is clear that even the most favored do not receive training 
that is as efficient as it should be. Clearer is it that the great 
mass of our boys and girls do not get either the amount or 
kind of training that would render them the most useful, and 
therefore the most happy citizens that they are capable of be- 
coming. And clearest and worst of all is the fact that thous- 
ands upon thousands of them are not only receiving very lit- 
tle useful training, but are actually being trained in the ways 
of vice and degredation. 

Should not something be done about these things? Plain 
it is that the answer to this question cannot be, no. 

In this land of ours who is it that does things? "We, the 
people of the United States." Are you one of them? Then, 
whatever your lot in life may be it is your privilege and your 
duty to do your best to help remedy these defects in our edu- 
cational system. No one is so high, no one is so humble in 
life that he or she has not this responsibility. No one is so 
situated that he or she cannot help in some effective way. 

The first thing that the citizen of this republic should do 
is to think about this question. Ponder it. Ask yourself the 
question, "What can I do to help?" You are already beginning 
to help when you earnestly ask yourself this question. There 
are many ways in which each one can help, and you are in 
fair way to discover those in which you can do your part 
when you do this. 

If I could place this book, poorly written as it is — I am 
not a trained writer, and parts of it were written on a bed 
of sickness — in the hands of every citizen, I could then pass 
on content. For, at least, it would have set our people to 
thinking about the matter. The principles set down herein 
are the right ones. The methods of solution and their eluci- 
dation would be taken up by many minds — ^minds far more 
capable and better trained in the subject than mine, or any 
other one man's can possibly be. It is my prayer that this 
will be done. Then the great questions of better and more 
efficient training for our youth and of military preparedness 
without the dangers of "Militarism" would be solved and solved 
aright . 

Until a better one appears treating upon this subject, read 
this book; get your friends and acquaintances to read it. 
Talk about it. Write about it. Discuss ways and means to 
solve the problems it presents. You may not agree with the 



116 

means which it proposes. Veiy well. The problems still 
exist, and need your help — yours — for their solution. If you 
can propose a better plan, it is certainly your duty to do that. 
If a better plan is proposed by somebody else, support it; put 
your shoulders to the wheel and work for it. Above all, do 
not just "do nothing." To do that would be "neglect of duty" 
— a very serious offense. 

This book was written to arouse our people to a realization 
of a crying need, and the worst fate that could befall my 
effort would be to have it "pigeon-holed", as was General 
Upton's "Military Policy," for years, or to lie unread upon a 
dusty bookshelf. If this book or a better one by somebody 
else does not wake up our people and cause them to realize 
the dangers that threaten, both from within and from with- 
out, then the Great Republic will fail, and mankind will again 
be plunged into the darkness of monarchy ; or anarchy will 
prevail, and the lot of men will be le"ss enviable than that of 
the beasts of the field. 

We have had one "Dark Ages" of a thousand years dura- 
tion. Let us not allow another. 

We must make this republic succeed. We can do so only 
by the efficient training of our young people. Whether we 
do that or not depends upon you and what you do to help. 

What are you doing as a citizen to help maintain efficiency 
in our public schools? Is your vote always cast on the right 
side? Or are you afraid of a little increase in school taxes? 
If so, let me tell you a secret. The quickest possible way for 
any community to get rich, collectively and individually, would 
be for every citizen in that community to give about ten times 
what he or she thinks he or she ought to give for the sup- 
port of its schools. It is literally a case of "Give and ye 
shall receive." 

Or perhaps you do not bother to attend school meetings 
or to vote at all. If you stay that way you are hopeless; 
and if enough more of your fellow-citizens follow your example 
your community and your country are both dbomed. You, 
Citizen, are going to live in just the kind of a countiy you 
deserve to live in — just exactly the kind you make it. 

And what are you doing to show your personal interest 
in your schools, and to arouse that interest within yourself? 
Do you visit even the school that your own children attend? 
You are missing one of the finest things in life if you do not 
do that . Also you are failing sadly in the duty of encourag- 
ing both teachers and pupils. How can you know what the 
school needs, if you do not go and see? If you did go oc- 
casionally, perhaps you might, at some time, realize the shabby 



117 

and unbeautiful surroundings that exist about nearly all our 
public schools; and you — even you — might make some move to 
change all that. Or you might perceive what a fine thing it 
would be to have the monotony varied by all the pupils spend- 
ing a part of the time each day in the open air learning and 
practicing real agriculture instead of being cooped up too many 
hours at a time. Or you might observe that facilities for 
inanual training are lacking for the boys, and for learning the 
art of home-making for the girls. A little thought on these 
things might reveal to you that it would not take long for the 
boys to save and sell enough lumber from goods boxes and 
enough bottles that are going to waste to buy for their school 
a manual training outfit, or that the girls could soon gather 
in, card, classify and sell enough buttons, that would be other- 
wise wasted, to buy a cooking outfit and a sewing outfit for 
use in their department. Let us go look at our schools, see 
what they need and put a little brains into possible methods of 
supplying those needs. Perhaps if we did the. boy who re- 
ceived the training would, in turn, save us some money by 
having learned' that it is not a good thing for the mowing 
machine to be allowed to set out all winter without shelter; 
or the girl would make mother and father, as well as husband, 
happy because she had learned how to make an efficient home, 
and how to run it economically. 

If you are editing a newspaper, how much space do you 
devote to schools, compared to that which you give to satisfy- 
ing morbid curiosity regarding crime and criminals? How 
much effort do you make to have what goes in your paper, as 
far as practicable, fit reading for the children who will read 
it? You can train your public in their likes and dislikes, as 
to what they read; and you could "make it pay" to have them 
like the right kind of reading, too. At least, many news- 
papers do, I am glad to say. But too many do not; and the 
newspaper is a big factor in the training of our youth these 
days. 

Are you a school director or an official of the public 
schools? Your neighbors have confided to you the job of in- 
forming them of the needs of your school and theirs, as well 
as that of using the means furnished to the best advantage. 
Are you doing this first part of your duty well? Have you 
studied the matter thoroughly and really infomied yourself 
about it? If you do so and pass on the knowledge thus ac- 
quired, you will soon see the inefficient, low-priced, dear-at'-any- 
price teacher succeeded by one who is worth more to the 
school than any school could afford to pay. You would see 
the ugly, sordid surroundings of your school-house give way 
to conditions that would remain with them a beautiful vision 
throughout the rest of the pupils' lives, uplifting and ennobling. 



118 

You would see the wofully inefficient and insufficient apparatus 
and ground's replaced by such as would make school work a 
pleasure and not a task. 

Have you infoiTned yourself upon your countiy's real mili- 
tary needs,, in this day when the beast nations are still a pow- 
er "in the world? Or do you merely fear "Militarism," without 
having tried to learn whether there may not be a solution to 
our militaiy needs that will be free from its dangers? The 
fear of "Militarism" is well grounded. We have seen too many 
and too recent examples of it. But the attitude of school 
authorities, and of many other people, too, for that matter, 
towards a proper system of training for militaiy d'uty in our 
schools is hard to understand. Such a system properly car- 
ried on will be free from the dangers of "Militarism." There 
can be no better proof of it than that every "Militarist" in 
this country is opposed to this system, and to the Reserve 
System of National Defense, which is its corollary. They 
w^ant the conscriptive, big-standing-army solution. In contrast, 
this system proposes a standing amiy, adequate in size and 
vifficiency for a nucleus, and to act promptly in emergencies 
(300,000 to 500,000 for a countiy of our size, importance and 
responsibilities) backed up by an invincible reserve that can be 
called into action only at the behest of the people, through 
their representatives . 

Are you a teacher? If so, you may be getting only one- 
half or even a fourth or a tenth of what you earn. If you 
are a really good teacher, you will never be getting anything 
near what your services are really worth to the community. 
The countiy is not rich enough to pay either the good teacher 
who devotes his life to the work, or the good soldier w^ho goes 
out, or stands ready to go out and get shot at for his country 
anything near what his services are w^orth, and never wdll be 
rich enough. A large part of your "pay" must always con- 
sist in love of your work, and in consciousness of duty well 
done. But you must have a "living wage" including enough 
to make it possible for you to save sufficient to live on in your 
old age, plus compensation for the amount spent already in 
preparing yourself for your profe'ssion. You cannot be and 
remain a good teacher for less. Insist on getting it. And 
be sure that you have prepared yourself before you begin, and 
be also sure that you "keep up with your profession" — keep 
yourself prepared — keep on being a good teacher. It is a 
terrible thing to teach the little children of your countiy in- 
efficiently. 

The United States Commissioner of Education reports that 
in the year of 1920, 25,000 schools are being presided over by 
teachers who have not measured up to the minimum standard 



119 

set by their respective states, and that 300,000 teachers have 
fallen below all reasonable standards. 

Better far that these schools had been added to the 20,000 
that were closed for want of teachers; for that would cer- 
tainly have awakened the people of our country to the school 
situation . 

So, be not a teacher, or be a good one. It is a menace 
to your countiy and to its free institutions for you to be' a 
school teacher if you are not a good one — well qualified and 
with your whole heart in the work. 

And do you teachers also insist upon a proper support in 
your work — ample buildings and grounds, beautiful and useful; 
all necessary apparatus, and a real school year instead of a 
piece of one. 

And inform yourselves, too, in the matter of military 
training. Do not let prejudice and "Pacifism" blind you to 
the fact that we still live in a world where the Right may have 
to be enforced by force of antns, and that it will continue to 
be so for some time. And do not shut your eyes to the fact 
that Military and Physical Training, Discipline and Morale, 
would be a good thing in itself for all of your charges — that 
the youth of our country need to be taught these things more 
than anything else — that if you yourself were really well- 
grounded in these things, and all your pupils were receiving 
proper instruction therein, your work would be vastly less of 
a burden and much more efficiently perfoiTned. 

Of course you hate war. So does every sensible person. 
But one of the surest ways of preventing our country from 
ever having to wage another war is for this system to be put 
into operation. It would make us strong — a giant among the 
nations — and at the same time inculcate a spirit of justice, 
right, truth and fair-dealing in our people that would cause 
the United States of America to desire from the bottom of the 
heai't to use a giant's strength only for the betteiTnent of 
mankind. 

If the teachers of this country v/ill wake up and demand 
these two things — adequate compensation for their services, 
and the facilitie's and privileges of giving their charges a real- 
ly efficient system of training, they will get both. The two 
things go hand in hand. 

Are you a rabbi or a priest or a minister of the gospel? 
And do you not find your work of saving the souls of men a 
very difficult one? Do you not find your efforts toward the 



120 

uplifting of mankind hampered and often nullified at every 
turn? And is not the principal reason for these conditions the 
fact that your chai'ges have lacked proper and efficient in- 
struction, teaching and training in their youth? 

Then surely you will favor a proper system of training 
for all the youth of our land, and press forward for its adop- 
tion and maintenance with all the power that is in you. It 
would do more than anything else you can imagine to help 
you to lead the souls of men to God. 

Are you a student in college or university? You are one 
of the most favored of mortals; and your responsibilities are 
correspondingly great. Are you thinking and planning ahead 
for the time, not far distant, when it will be you, and those 
who are now students like you, who will be holding the reins 
of those institutions? You giiimble at methods and curricula, 
perhaps. Are you planning changes for their bettemient when 
your day shall come? 

It has lately come to my knowledge that cheatings and 
petty dishonesties in school-work are frequent in one of our 
great universities. I have reason to believe that it is so in 
many other such institutions. 

How are you going to regard in future the class-mate 
whom you know to have partly cheated his way through? Do 
you wish this standard-lowerin,g condition to continue to exist? 
Is your diploma worth as much as it would be if it were known 
that the spirit of your alma mater was such that practically 
no student would do such a thing? 

This proposed system would as nearly eliminate such 
practices as it is possible to do. 

Go into this proposed system; and if it doesn't suit you, 
after mature and careful consideration, work out a better one 
and start it going. If you do like it, push it with all your 
might, for the sake of your country, for the sake of those less 
fortunate than you in the kind and amount of training receiv- 
ed; and for the sake of your children and their children and 
children's children yet unborn. 

Are you a professor in a college or a university? Then 
you are one of the hardest-working, most conscientious, most 
poorly paid for your services (if you are a good one) persons 
on Earth. Also, you are wrapped up in your own little sub- 
ject (if you are like most professors) and are one of the most 
narrow-minded men about nearly everything else. 

Do get out of your shell long enough to give a thorough 



121 

consideration to this broad subject of the general training of 
the youth of our country. For your influence can be made 
great in this matter. 

You, too, hate war and love Freedom and Liberty bound- 
ed by Law and Order. Study this proposed system and see 
if it is not what is needed. 

Are you a business man? Would you not like to see ef- 
iiciency and honesty the rule of business? Then push this 
system along, and at the same time, train yourself and your 
employes a httle. Do you know that the woixi "business" in 
these days of almost universal "profiteering" is getting to be 
somewhat of a "stench in our nostrils"? Train yourself and 
your employes a little, both in nonesty and efficiency. You 
need it. But there is not much hope for you business men of 
this generation. You have tasted blood. Most of you will 
go on ".getting while the getting is good" — and you are not 
entirely alone in it either. Most everybody is doing it — or 
trying to. That is what makes it so sad. But let us try 
to have the next and succeeding generations more efficiently 
trained in both honesty and efficiency. 

If you think that this proposed system will do that, work 
for it. If not, get up a better one and press for its adoption. 
In the bigger and better system that is going to be worked 
out ultimately, your aid and assistance will be needed', too. 
But you need to be cautioned not to be short-sighted, and not 
to let what you do be on the side of parsimony and the keep- 
ing of the "expenses" of the system unjustifiably low. 

Are you a man or woman of means? If you are then you 
are, indeed, a power and you can probably get into action quick- 
er and in many ways more effectively than anyone else in this 
jnatter of a proper and efficient system of training for our 
youth . 

There is scarcely a school district in the United States 
that does not contain one or more citizens who could lend 
financial aid to this movement without in the least hurting 
them or causing them any serious inconvenience. In many 
cases actual financial benefit would come to the donor. A good 
school is a sure index to good property values. To make the 
schools of the community better is certain to result in a cor- 
responding rise in property values which will far outweigh the 
extra amount expended! upon the schools. 

We are told that some rich people have a hai'd time find- 
ing worthy ways in which to dispose of their suiirius. Thia 
is strange when the schools stand in. such crying need of 



122 

financial assistance to brin^g" them up to the standard they 
should hold, and when worthy, brainy men and women are 
going through life only half-equipped for the good they might 
do because of the lack of sufficient money to have enabled them 
to secure a really good education. 

If you are one of the many who have money to sparer — 
and many more have than think they have — take a stroll past 
the nearest school house, or better still, enter and observe 
its needs and deficiencies in grounds, in apparatus and in teach- 
ing-force. Then try the experiment of supplying some of 
these needs. 

Where buildings are insufficient for their purpose, build 
some that are. Or better still, induce the district to build by 
supplying a part of the needed funds on condition that they 
supply the rest. 

Where grounds are insufficient or unbeautiful, remedy this 
defect in a similar manner. 

Where teachers are undei-paid, endow their positions on 
condition that the district shall, in its turn, pay to occupants 
of these positions a certain minimum larger than the entire 
salaries they have been accustomed to pay. Donate a sum, 
the income from which is to pay one-fourth or one-fifth of the 
teachers' salaries in the school, provided the salaries are kept 
up to your prescribed minimum, and provided further that the 
school is operated for twelve school-months per year. 

Endow outright institutions of grade, high school or col- 
lege class that will agree to fulfill i-equirements similar to 
those set forth in this system; and make the endowments 
large enough to cover a system of "appointments," with cor- 
responding individual obligations. Or again, better still, agree 
to endow thus in part only, and providing the remaining por- 
tion of the endowment needed is raised and furnished by the 
community itself. You who have money to spare could not 
dispose of it in any other way that would do as much good to 
yourself, nor be of as great benefit to your fellows and your 
country . 

Start a revolving loan fund for the aid of worthy, indigent 
pupils and students, requiring that half or two-thirds of this 
fund be furnished by the citizens of the community and putting 
corresponding obligations upon the recipients. 

Endow, or similarly assist in endowing, prizes for excel- 
lence in teaching, in scholarship, in practical agriculture, and 



123 

in the subject of Military and Physical Training, Discipline and 
Morale . 

Why hold back endowments and similar financial assistance 
from the public schools and state colleges? Such endowments 
would probably reach two or three times as many individuals 
and do several times as much good there as anywhere else. 
They would certainly do vastly more good than for you to 
leave a swollen fortune for your heirs to haggle over and hate 
each other about. 

If only a portion of that money which causes more evil 
than good in its inheritance were put to these uses instead, it 
would be amply sufficient to pay the entire cost of this system. 
Are you one of those who are thus foolishly and hai-mfully 
disposing of their wealth? Study this system and see what 
prospects it offers to you and to those who shall come after 
you. 

It is natural to desire to leave your child free from finan- 
cial want when you pass. But it is questionable whether this 
is even really desirable — whether it is not l^etter for the child 
himself that he be compelled, beyond certain limits, to build 
his own career unaided. But it is certain that in nearly all 
cases the inheritance of great wealth proves a curse rather 
than a blessing to the heir. 

Put your suiplus to working for the betterment of the 
world by giving much-needed assistance to the training of our 
country's young people rather than leave too much of it to 
be a curse upon the heads of your own flesh and blood. 

Are you yourself an indigent — one of the poverty-stricken 
ones, ineificient and unsuccessful in all you try to do and be? 
Can you not see the reason, as you look back along the line, 
to be lack of training, or poor training or even vicious train- 
ing? Probably you were as well endowed mentally and physi- 
cally as many who are efficient and successful. But you have 
failed to receive the right training, and have failed to train 
yourself aiight. You are a failure. It wouldn't matter much 
if you were the only one, or if there were only a few like 
you ; but there are thousands upon thousands, and you and 
your kind are a burden unto yourselves and a menace to your 
country. Do you want your children and millions of other 
children to grow up under the same conditions that have made 
you a failure? 

Perhaps you do. Many people resent anyone else, even 
their own children, having an opportunity to live a higher 



124 

standard than they themselves. But if you do see things in 
the right hght — if you want your children and your neighbors' 
children to receive an efficient training — you may yet succeed 
in one thing in life. You may help in the establishment of 
this system. 

"How can one in my position help"? you ask. Is not your 
vote as big as that of any other man's in this people's govern- 
ment? No, it is not, if you supinely give up and neglect to 
cast it, or neglect to inform yourself which side to cast it 
on. But you can make it as big, and it ought to be you 
and men and women like you whose voices should declare that 
no longer shall there be a vast horde of children growing up 
without proper training and, consequently, without proper op- 
portunities in life for usefulness and happiness. 

Whose was the final vote and influence that put prohibi- 
tion across? It was probably that of the at-last-a wakened 
tippler and drunkard who yet had left strength of character 
enough to want somebody to help him put the poison where 
he could not reach it more. 

And you can help in other ways, too. You can talk this 
thing. You can present it in its most convincing form. You 
can envision for your neighbors and associates what such a 
system might have done for you. You can beg them not to 
fail to seize upon it for the sakes of those now growing up 
who, under the present lack of a proper system of training 
for all our children, are surely destined to be failures also. 

Are you a legislator — one of the elected representatives 
of the people? Your constituents have chosen you to make 
for them the very best possible code of laws for the upbuild- 
ing of their life, and the promotion of their efficiency and hap- 
piness. Your duty is not being perfoiTned unless you are 
intelligently studying their needs as well as their wishes. 
You are a leader and a teacher as well as a public servant. 

The most urgent need of all our people, and of our Gov- 
ernment — State and National — is a proper system of youth- 
training. You must give it to us, or we shall not have it. 
But how can you give it to us if you do not know it yourself? 
Study this question. Solve it. And then make laws putting 
the right system into operation. 

Delay not; for in this case, particularly, "Delays are dan- 
gerous . " 

You wish to serve your constituency faithfully and well. 



125 

You wish the Great Republic to hve on. You wish all the 
children to be well educated — well trained. 

Then study this system, and if it finds favor in your 
eyes, do your part in putting it into operation. And be 
neither stingy nor half-hearted about it. Give it thought, 
time and attention; and then inaugurate it and provide for 
its maintenance. 

"Let's go!" 



AFTER- WORD: * 



Keep this book for your children and their children and 
children's children to read. Your appreciation of its worth 
will increase as the years go on. 



J. F. BRUCE, 



507 Stewart Road, 
Columbia, Missouri, 
October 20, 1920. 



